Después de estudiar cine en el London Film School dirigió diversos largos documentales con un tema recurrente: la capacidad del individuo de enfrentarse a grandes oponentes. Entre sus documentales se encuentran Liza … como ella( historia de un homosexual de la étnia Guna), seleccionado en Discovering Latinamerica Film Festival , GIEFF Gottingen, Etno Film Fest Tirana , Pärnu, Havana (muestra).
En el 2014 estrenó el documental Rompiendo la Ola en el Festival Internacional de Cine de IFF de Panamá consiguiendo un contrato de distribución mundial por Habanero Films. Fue selección oficial del Warsaw Film Festival, Chicago Latino Film Festival y el Newport Beach Film Festival. Rompiendo la Ola. Actualmente se encuentra en Postproducción de Buscando el Indio Conejo y Producción de Hijo de Tigre y Mula , el Tratado.
Since 1994 Maria Neyla, a Graphic designer and profesional photographer, has worked on several documentary international and national projects. She has also won national funds, film prizes such as the Colombian Film Fund, Doc TV funds and Ibermedia Funds.
She has taken workshops on Film Photography Workshop at EICTV Cuba and taken the Humberto Solas Directing Actors Workshop at UNEAC(National Union of Cuban Writers and Actors). She also earned an IBERMEDIA Scholarship on Intensive Protools in Mexico DF.
In 1994 she directed her first short film “Salazar and Torres were guilty”, experimental animation on 16mm which had a honorific mention at the Bogota Film Festival.
Maria Neyla has worked in Colombia as a producer in the feature film: Between Us (USA –Colombia co-productions) and the Feature Documentary: Mama Koka (Germany) by Corazón Internacional de FathiAkin Enterprises.
At the present time she is more linked with General Production. She likes to develop documentaries and fictions with directors from its begining stages. At the present time she is producing the fiction feature Sultán (Panama). In the development stages she is producing the feature fiction: The fishing of the White Tuna from Maritza Blanco ( Colombia).
On the documentary area she is producing the feature documentary: In Search of the Rabbit Indian by Annie Canavaggio (Panamá).