About

Melissa Anastasi is a queer Cypriot-Australian award-winning writer and director working across narrative film, series, and commissioned video works. Melissa’s screenplays have been selected for the prestigious Venice Biennale College Cinema, Binger FilmLab, and shortlisted for the Sundance Lab. She is currently in advanced development on her feature Once Upon a Time You Loved Me, which was developed through the Venice Biennale College Cinema, and subsequently with the support of Stroy’d. Melissa is also in development on the thriller/horror feature film See You Shine, with Breathless Films.

Melissa’s works are intimate narratives which take a considered approach to identity and the nuances of relationships, subtly exploring cultural, social and psychological factors on the interpersonal. She is the recipient of two ADG Awards, an AACTA nomination, and has exhibited widely at film festivals including Sydney, BFI London, Oldenburg, Tampere, Cork, Nashville, Uppsala and New Directors.

Melissa was recently a development writer in the writer’s room for Goalpost Pictures new series in development The Golden Ass. Melissa has co-written on features including Splinter with David Barker for Playground Films, an adaptation of the Hilary Bell play of the same name, and Deluge with Ayeshah Rose for producers Chris Luscri and Hayley Surgenor.

For commercial work she is represented by Playground Films.

She’ll Want More

She’ll Want More (SWM) is the banner under which Melissa directs and produces work, from original and adapted dramatic works, to video art and commissioned documentaries.

Melissa Anastasi
Writer & Director
m. +61 410 657 915 w. swmfilms.org
e. melissa@melissaanastasi.com