Vanessa Alexander

Vanessa Alexander moved from Los Angeles to Oamaru at the age of fourteen and has been based in NZ ever since.  A writer who learned to direct - and then produce - she is responsible for, amongst other things, the feature film Magik and Rose (writer/director) and TV Series Being Eve (producer/director).  

Magik and Rose screened at numerous international festivals and was selected to screen at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival Forum for super low-budget features. 

The teen series Being Eve sold to more than 40 territories, including the US where it aired on Nickelodeon/Noggin. The show went on to win many awards, and in 2003 was nominated for an International Emmy. 

Alexander has produced and/or executive produced a number of award-winning short films including the Oscar-nominated Two Cars One Night and more recently Cargo (Venice, London, Melbourne, Tribeca, Paris, Telluride 2008). 

She has an MA in Film and Television, a BA in Drama/English, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Film Directing from Victoria College of Art, Melbourne.

Alexander has won a number of awards, including: an International Student Playwrighting Competition (1991); the SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year Award (1999); the Jury Prize at the Oporto Festival; a Gold and Silver World Medal at the New York Festival; Best Series and Best Children's Series at the NZ Screen Awards; a Telly Award; A Media Peace Award; and the Prix Grande at the Danube Television Festival.

Her work on series one of Outrageous Fortune garnered her a Best Director nomination at the 2005 Qantas TV awards, her second nomination in that category.  

Most recently she directed on Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive and Jungle Fever (for Disney); and script-edited the final drafts of The Laundry Warrior - a kung-fu western starring Geoffrey Rush and Kate Bosworth. 

Alexander was also a director on Maddigan's Quest - a BBC/SPP co-pro, and Mercy Peak.

In 2003, Alexander completed two months with the development team at Working Title UK and went on to train as a script/story editor with the UK based script consultancy team ARISTA. She has since worked as a development consultant on several screenplays in development with the NZFC.

In 2004, Vanessa was one of eight writers invited to take part in the European screenwriting lab eQuinoxe.

She has storylined and/or script produced a number of TV series and is the writer of A Life in Romance, a feature currently in advanced development with the NZFC.

Vanessa lectures in Film at the University of Auckland, is the current Chair of Script to Screen (the New Zealand Writer's Foundation), and a Board Member of the New Zealand Film Commission.