Director Catriona McKenzie Launches Dark Horse Production Company

Ahead of the LA Film Festival screenings of her series Kiki and Kitty this month, multi-award-winning writer/director/ producer Catriona McKenzie has announced that she is setting up her own production company, Dark Horse.

The first Indigenous Australian woman to direct series television in the US (Shadowhunters for Freeform), Catriona spent time as a director's attachment on the television series Prison Break (Fox) and she interned at Ridley Scott's production company and as a director's attachment on his film Alien: Covenant.

Kiki and Kitty, based on an original concept from and written by Nakkiah Lui and produced by Porchlight Films' Liz Watts and Sylvia Warmer, is a 6 x 12-minute series about the adventures of a young, black woman in a big, white world, where her vagina is a big, black woman and her best friend. The series won two prizes at Series Mania in Paris.

First on the slate at Dark Horse is Stolen, which Catriona is co-writing with Patricia Cornelius (Blessed). Catriona is also attached to direct the US feature Driven with producers Veronica Sive and Brian Gersh at Sunjive.

Catriona's recent directing credits include Tidelands, Australia's first Netflix Original, and the series Wrong Kind of Black, Harrow and The Warriors. She has directed outstanding television series including the Emmy-nominated Dance Academy; Logie and AFI award-winner My Place (series 1 and 2) and Satisfaction starring Academy Award-nominated Jacki Weaver. She has also directed the pilot of award-winning series The Circuit, Redfern Now and The Gods of Wheat Street (ABC-TV). Her first feature, Satellite Boy, premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2012, and screened at Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2013, as well as collecting the international and children's juries' Special Mention at Berlinale. Satellite Boy was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Film and was the 2014 recipient of the Australian Directors Guild Finders Award and Best Feature at imagiNATIVE Media Arts Festival, Canada.

Dark Horse is the next step in McKenzie's passion for telling audacious stories to her audience.

"I am partnering with international creatives to bring uniquely diverse stories to the global market. I am committed to championing diverse creative talent and gathering exciting partners around Dark Horse, such as brand strategist Greg Logan at The Definery. I am also working with Erin Bretherton on developing new projects domestically and internationally across various platforms, and with writer Ligiah Villalobos on new television projects," she says.

Catriona graduated with Honours from the prestigious Australian Film, Television and Radio School and she also studied screen writing at NYU, TISCH. She has mentored other emerging filmmakers at Sundance Native Writing Lab, OUTFEST and UC and she has sat on various film juries including Berlinale and the New Zealand International Film Festival.

Catriona is of Australian Aboriginal descent; her tribe is the Kunai Gurnai of South Eastern Australia.

Kiki and Kitty screens as part of the following LA Film Festival sessions. Q&A follows each session.

EPISODES: INDIE SERIES FROM THE WEB

Saturday Sep 22 at 9:00 PM and Sunday Sep 23 at 12:45 PM

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