Adrian Chiarella

Writer | Director

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

His debut feature Leviticus premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the Midnight Section to rave reviews. Produced by Causeway Films, Leviticus is a bold and haunting queer horror that follows two teenage boys whose first love turns deadly after a brutal conversion-therapy ritual leaves them stalked by a violent entity that takes the form of the person they desire most – each other. Following its success at Sundance, Leviticus was purchased by NEON for international distribution and will continue its festival run at SXSW 2026.

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 (Hoodlum Entertainment/Paramount+). 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). The series, which explored sex and intimacy between typically underrepresented characters on screen, went on to receive unwavering critical acclaim, an AACTA Award nomination for Best Drama Series, and in 2025 won Adrian the AWGIE Award for Television Series for his episode “Walking Gambit”.

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.

Adrian is a graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and has previously worked as an editor, script editor and development producer.

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