Biograpy
Dana-Lee is an award winning director, writer and producer. Her short films have screened at film festivals worldwide, including The Soho International Film Festival, The San Francisco International Festival of Short Films, The St Kilda Film Festival, The SHORTS Film Festival and The Canberra Short Film Festival.
Her latest short film, 'Sammy' won Best Family Short at both the Silver State Film Festival in Las Vegas and the Silicon Beach Film Festival in Los Angeles. 'Sammy' been nominated for Best Female Director, Best Sci Fi Short and Best Child Actress at Indie Shorts, the Los Angeles International Film Festival, winning Best Child Actress.
With ten nominations for Australia’s Oxflix’s Ozsnax awards, including Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Composition, Best Sound Design, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Short, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Production Design, the short won Best Production Design. ‘Sammy’ secured top four in the audience choice awards for The Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts, Social Shorts, presented by Mini. The short premiered in Australia at Sydney’s Sci Fi Film Festival.
UK’s Southampton International Film Festival gave ‘Sammy’ three nominations including Best Production Design, Best International Short and Best Cinematography.
‘Sammy’ has been officially selected as part of the Kids First! Film Festival, the world’s largest film festival for kids held in New Mexico. The short has screened at the Full Bloom Film Festival in North Carolina, US, The International Social Change Film Festival in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles in the US, The Children’s Day International Film Festival in Colorado, US, The San Francisco Independent Short Film Festival in San Francisco, US and Marina Del Ray Film Festival in Los Angeles US.
‘Sammy’ has been acquired by UK’s Gonnella Productions for international distribution, Australia’s Ozflix and Deadhouse TV, as well as American’s Boyish for online distribution.
‘Sammy’ is a snippet into a longer form project Dana-Lee is developing. A draft for the ‘Sammy’ project was longlisted for the Prime Time Screen Writing Competition run by Screen Australia and the Australian Writer’s Guild.
Dana-Lee’s short film ‘The Last Days of Connie Hayes’ was nominated for an Independent Film Award and won an award for Cinematography, as well as first prize for the Audience Choice Award at Open Channel’s Love Your Work Film Festival.
Dana-Lee completed the highly competitive and sought after Director Series at The National Film and Television School in the UK.
Her work in a range of roles across a variety of film and television productions has seen her step into director attachment positions with iconic Australian television shows such as ‘Mcleod’s Daughters,’ ‘All Saints’ and ‘Neighbours.’
Dana-Lee’s experience in a variety of roles in theatre evolved into writing, directing and producing a diverse style of theatrical plays.
Dana-Lee has directed, written and produced numerous award winning commercials, community services announcements and music videos.
Additionally, Dana-Lee is currently developing several television series and feature films.
