Born in Sydney in 1982, Dustin Feneley is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts Film School. His short films as writer and director (NIGHT, SNOW, HAWKER and ESKIMO KISS) have won numerous awards and screened at over one hundred film festivals, including official selections at Cannes, London, Sydney and Melbourne. In 2006, his short film SNOW premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Cinéfondation selection. In the same year, SNOW was exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
In 2007, Dustin was the recipient of the Qantas Spirit of Youth Award for Moving Image, the leading awards in Australasia for emerging creative talent. In 2011, he was awarded the Filmmaker Grand Prix at the Sapporo International Short Film Festival in Japan for his body of work in short films.
Dustin is an alumni of Melbourne International Film Festival’s Accelerator programme and Script to Screen’s FilmUp programme. He has been a selector and mentor for Script to Screen’s Short Film Lab and has taught undergraduate courses in filmmaking. His debut feature project STRAY was selected for the Directors Lab of the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam in 2012 and for CineMart at Rotterdam in 2013. Set in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, STRAY had its World Premiere in Main Competition at the 2018 Moscow International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Saint George Award for Best Actor.
STRAY is currently screening in New Zealand cinemas and at numerous international film festivals. Dustin lives in Auckland and is a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand.
