Alethea is an Australian director, writer and choreographer. Sometimes she acts too.
She recently joined the ranks of Sydney-based production company, Jungleboys. Her first gig with them is as one of the director’s on their new comedy series The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide to Knife Fighting (ABC).
Alethea’s latest work is the Tropfest 2013 trailer, which she directed and developed. Her last short film, Dave’s Dead enjoyed its Victorian premier at the Melbourne International Film Festival and its world premier at the Sydney Film Festival, with Dendy Award nominations for Best Film and Best Director. Earlier in 2012 she won Tropfest Australia with her short film Lemonade Stand which was then selected to compete in the Tropfest All Stars competition in Las Vegas. But Alethea made her first real mark on the industry with her short, When the Wind Changes. It premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival as part of its Accelerator program, won Best Short Film at the IF Awards in 2011 and then won the Audience Choice at both Flickerfest and the St Kilda Film Festival, where it also won Best Comedy. It has screened at numerous international film festivals where audiences all over the world have responded to its distinct and original humour.
Her focus has now turned to long-form projects. Alethea has several features that she is working on with incredibly talented writers and actors. To nurture her love of television, she has completed two directing attachments on fast turnaround television; on action series Rush (Network Ten) and serial Neighbours (Network Ten). She also notched up her first broadcast credit as the writer/director of Tissue, a documentary, which premiered on the ABC as part of its acclaimed Anatomy series in 2012. To her knowledge, it is the first and possibly only project to use choreography as a technique to demonstrate cell biology.
In 2011, Alethea directed and edited five episodes of the webseries, Cop Hard, in which she also appeared as Rita Zedacastis. She was then invited to direct the trailers for Flickerfest 2012. Alethea loves getting people, particularly non-professional dancers, to move. She has choreographed for acts including Delta Goodrem, Operator Please, Children Collide, Kisschasy and Sisters Grim Theatre Company. Alethea is inspired by movies like The Royal Tenenbaums, Bullets Over Broadway and Magnolia. Billy Wilder, Wes Anderson, Woody Allen and P.T Anderson are her favourite directors. In terms of TV, she finds 30Rock to be perfection, loves Game of Thrones, can’t go past Angels in America and has been known to fantasize about both making Battlestar Gallactica and living its reality.
Mostly, Alethea loves thinking up new and strange ways to make people laugh (in film and life).
