She won the best documentary award at the 2021 Cuban American International Film Festival for her meditative visual memoir, A Cuban Documemory. Her film, Finding Shelter, won best documentary short at the San Diego Latino Film Festival in 2019 and she received a filmmaker of the month award (September 2019) from NewFilmmakers LA. The documentary is currently streaming on DocsNow.
Her work as an actor has been seen on Broadway and on major stages throughout the world and her solo show, Daughter of a Cuban Revolutionary, has toured the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. Other shorts include; Zohra which was nominated for best actress and best comedy awards at the Official Latino Film Festival and streamed on BronxNet, and Nostalgia, in collaboration with Cuba based artist Aissa Santiso and presented at Fabrica de Arte in Havana.
Her films have screened at; Anthology Film Archive, The Segal Center in NYC, Pasadena Film Festival, among others. Marissa is on the Theater School faculty at California Institute of the Arts where she is Director of Duende CalArts, an initiative of the CalArts Center for New Performance that produces innovative Latinx and Latin American artists.
For Duende she conceived and wrote Shelter, which premiered in April 2016 at Lincoln Park, was presented at the Kennedy Center and is published by NoPassport Press.
She is the recipient of the 2016 TCG Fox Fellowship in Distinguished Achievement.
