Maria Pulera
Málaga-based film director and producer, named with Eric Banoun in a disputed 2024 spyware export complaint
| Maria Pulera
| |
|---|---|
| Image |  Maria Pulera, in a photograph published with a PopHorror interview, December 2018 |
| Nationality | British-American (according to Haaretz) |
| Residence | Málaga, Spain |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter and producer |
| Known for | Between Worlds (2018); named in a disputed 2024 spyware export complaint |
Maria Pulera is a film director, screenwriter and producer based in Spain. She wrote and directed the 2018 supernatural thriller Between Worlds, starring Nicolas Cage, which she co-produced with Eric Banoun.[1][2] In March 2024 Haaretz reported that an anonymous complaint to Israeli and US export-control authorities had accused Pulera and Banoun of selling spyware without permits. Both denied the allegations and said the complaint was the work of blackmailers.[3]
Film career
Deadline described Pulera in 2017 as a "Spain-based filmmaker" when Nicolas Cage signed to star in Between Worlds, which she wrote. It reported that Pulera and Eric Banoun of Rise Up Films were producing the film with David Hillary.[1] The film had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in 2018, and Cinapse described it as her second film.[4] The Hollywood Reporter lists Rise Up as the production company and Saban Films as distributor, with Banoun, Hillary and Pulera as producers.[2]
In interviews Pulera said she grew up in Wisconsin and went to film school in the 1990s.[4][5] Haaretz described her as a British-American filmmaker living in Málaga.[3]
Shield Security and Hacking Team
Haaretz reported that in 2012, while working at a company called Shield Security, Pulera emailed the Italian spyware company Hacking Team.[3] The email, published by WikiLeaks in its archive of Hacking Team's internal correspondence, was sent from a Shield Security address on 9 January 2012. It asked for a quotation for a monthly service to have "a list of internet links" deleted, for a customer described as "presidential security for a non-sanctioned, non blacklisted country".[6]
2024 export complaint
On 2 March 2024 Haaretz published an investigation by Gur Megiddo of TheMarker into an anonymous complaint sent on 8 January 2024 to the defence export control authorities of Israel's Ministry of Defence and to US authorities. It alleged that Pulera and Eric Banoun had sold spyware without permits to a private company allegedly acting as a front for the Egyptian government, in a three-year deal worth about $42 million for a territory code-named "Lotus". Pulera and Banoun told TheMarker that the complaint had been invented by blackmailers and that some of the documents were fake, and they denied having any Egyptian client. Haaretz reported that on 7 January 2024 Tamer Esmat Qursha, a US-Jordanian intermediary, had emailed Banoun demanding $3 million and threatening to expose him.[3]
TheMarker found that some details in the documents were corroborated elsewhere, including shipments from Málaga to Cairo in November 2023 to Amstone International Trading, and a voice message, ostensibly from Pulera to Qursha, about a demonstration of capabilities on 13 December 2023. It said that the claim that the client was the Egyptian government "is not backed up by anything".[3]
A reseller agreement attached to the complaint named Chaia Services Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company, as the vendor. According to that reseller agreement reported by Haaretz, whose signature her lawyer says is forged, Sara Hamou, the former wife of Tal Dilian, was a Chaia director. Eric Banoun and Maria Pulera also say her signature is a forgery, and Hamou's lawyer told TheMarker that she never signed the agreement. Haaretz said the alleged connection to Intellexa rested on this one detail, "whose veracity is also in doubt", and that "even if it were proved that her signature on the agreement involving Chaia happens to be authentic, that in itself is not proof of her former husband's involvement", because Hamou had acted as a director on behalf of clients and "may also indicate that she was only providing services to Chaia's beneficial owners, whoever they may be". Intellexa told TheMarker that it "does not now have, and has never had, commercial ties with Chaia Services Ltd", and Banoun called the allegations "unfounded and baseless". In its list of responses, Haaretz said that no comment had been received from Pulera, Qursha or Michael Adel Botros.[3]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Amanda N'Duka, Nicolas Cage To Topline Indie Thriller 'Between Worlds' From Director Maria Pulera, Deadline, 23 August 2017, accessed 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Frank Scheck, 'Between Worlds': Film Review, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 December 2018, accessed 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Gur Megiddo, 'Send $3 Million or I'll Expose You': A Businessman, a Filmmaker and an Alleged Israeli Spyware Deal Gone Awry, Haaretz (English edition of a TheMarker investigation), 2 March 2024 (archived copy), accessed 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dan Tabor, Fantastic Fest 2018: A Chat with Maria Pulera, Director of BETWEEN WORLDS, Cinapse, 8 October 2018, accessed 22 October 2026.
- ↑ Brandon, Interview with 'Between Words' Maria Pulera: A Director with Artistic Inspiration, PopHorror, 8 December 2018, accessed 22 October 2026.
- ↑ WikiLeaks, Fwd: service quote request, Hacking Team emails archive, email dated 9 January 2012, accessed 22 October 2026.