Adrian Chiarella

Writer | Director

Adrian Chiarella is an award-winning screenwriter and director, based in Melbourne, Australia.

Adrian made his television directing debut, with an episode of the Stan and Sundance Now comedy drama, Totally Completely Fine (Fremantle Media, 2023), starring Thomasin McKenzie. This was immediately followed by directing two episodes of the third instalment in the hit television series, Five Bedrooms, for Paramount Plus and Hoodlum Entertainment. 2023 also saw Adrian make his episodic writing debut, writing a standalone episode for the Lingo Pictures’ anthology series Erotic Stories (SBS, dir. Madeleine Gottlieb) entitled ‘Walking Gambit’. The series, which explored sex and intimacy between typically underrepresented characters on screen, went on to receive unwavering critical acclaim and an AACTA Award nomination for Best Drama Series.

Adrian is a graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, and began his career editing previsualisation for Baz Luhrmann on the feature film Australia (Bazmark Films, 2008). Adrian next cut Craig Boreham’s feature film Teenage Kicks (Azure Productions, 2016), and Lucy Gaffy’s acclaimed short film The Love Song of Iskra Prufrock (AFTRS, 2010), earning him an Australian Screen Editors Award. Wishing to move into directing and screenwriting, Adrian directed and edited numerous promotional campaigns for Foxtel’s original, Australian, drama series including Wentworth (2013-2021), The Devil’s Playground (2014), and The Kettering Incident (2016). He also worked in development for Tony Ayres’ production company, TAP, where he was Co-script Producer on the comedy series Creamerie (2021). His script editing credits also include the feature films Lonesome (dir. Craig Boreham/ Breathless Films, 2022) and the upcoming feature film debut of writer Harvey Zielinski, Sweet Milk Lake (prod. Rosie Lourde who produced Skin Deep, 2015).

Adrian wrote and directed three hugely successful short films, the first being Touch (2014), earning him an Australian Directors Guild nomination after screening at numerous festivals around the world. The second was Black Lips (2018), funded by Create New South Wales and SBS and screened at Palm Springs International Shortfest, Rhode Island Film Festival, St Kilda Film Festival, BFI Flare, Outfest Fusion, and Melbourne Queer Film Festival where it won best short film. In 2021 his short film Dwarf Planet was funded through the Australian Directors' Guild and premiered in competition at Clermont-Ferrand before playing as a finalist in the Dendy Awards at Sydney Film Festival and was nominated for an AACTA for best short drama.

He is currently in development on his debut feature film, Leviticus, a queer horror, and a finalist in VicScreen and Arena Media's Originate program.

For enquiries regarding Adrian Chiarella please contact us via email or on (02) 9319 7199