Biography – Kirsty (KJ) Hamilton
Kirsty was born and raised in New Zealand and is of Māori (Whanau A Pani, Ngāti Ruapani, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahungunu), Scottish, English, German and Irish descent.
She trained as an actress at the New Zealand Drama School and went on to play Grace in Costa Botes feature Saving Grace for which she was nominated Best Actress at the New Zealand Television and Film Awards.
She worked for a number of years in theater playing roles such as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Valerie in Connor McPherson's - The Weir, Mrs Cheavely in An Ideal Husband, Joan in Is (Patrick Graham) and Rosalind in As You Like it directed by actress/acting coach Miranda Harcourt.
In 2007 Kirsty was chosen as the Shakespeare Globe Center of New Zealand's International Fellow at Shakespeare's Globe theater in London where she studied under Patsy RodenBurg, Cicely Berry, Jan Haydn Rowles and others. In 2009 she graduated from European Act in London (3 month acting and writing intensive through the London Actors Center & RADA).
Kirsty graduated with an MA in creative writing from the Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University in Wellington in 2012, earned an Honors Degree in Screen Production from The University of Auckland and holds a secondary teaching degree in Drama and English.
Cold is Kirsty's third short film which she wrote, produced and directed premiered at the Sandy Dennis Film Festival (US) in 2019.
Kirsty was chosen by the Directors Guild of New Zealand in 2016 as a participant in the DEGNZ Inaugural Female Film Incubator to help equip up and coming female directors into their first features and was chosen by the New Zealand Film Commission to be take part of their Accelerator program for the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Harakore/Without Sin her feature screenplay was submitted to the Iris Writers Lab 2018, Seed Development 2017 and 2018, Sundance Writers Lab 2019 (second round status), Tribeca All Access 2019, Film Up 2017 & 2019, Story Camp 2017 & 2018 and most recently Breaking Through The Lens, Cannes. Pippa Best - script Consultant, Emma Mortimer, and Boianna of Red Oxygen Films, Chile, are associate Producers.
She is currently working her feature screenplay Without Sin (Harakore) .
Kirsty currently teaches and coaches young actors and is in production for a feature documentary as well as developing short screenplays.