Ana Scotney

Bio

Ana Chaya Scotney is an actor, artist and film and theatre maker.

She recently completed shooting as one of the leads in the inter-generational Māori-helmed feature film Cousins. She plays the lead, Millie, in Michelle Savill's NZFC funded soon-to-be released debut feature film Mille Lies Low.  She has recently wrapped filming the new Netflix series God’s Favourite Idiot in Byron Bay, alongside Melissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone and Steve Mallory.

Her breakthrough screen role came when cast as Sepa in Jackie Van Beek and Madeleine Sami’s 2018 hit comedy feature The Breaker Upperers – currently streaming on Netflix.

In 2020, Ana was awarded one of six Gender Scholarships from The New Zealand Film Commission. An award which recognises and celebrates women in the screen industry, and is aimed at supporting their career progression. With this grant, she is developing short film Universe From Our Waka, and feature-project Agnes. 

In 2020, she was also an Artist in Residence, taking part in Basement Theatre's 'Ideas In Residence,' alongside award winning theatre maker and director Eleanor Bishop, developing material for a new solo performance exploring themes of belonging as an urban Māori, in Aotearoa New Zealand, today.

A prodigious writer and director, her first short film, Dance of Lonely Birds, created during her final year at Toi Whakaari, was shown at WINDA Indigenous Film Festival in Sydney, The Bali Indigenous Film Festival, and at Māoriland Film Festival. 

Ana has devised and performed four original works of solo performance. Death of Nomad when she was 18, Mighty Boy, whilst studying acting at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School, Waiporoporo with Meanwhile Gallery, in Wellington and The Contours of Heaven which she co-created with director Puti Lancaster. The verbatim piece won multiple awards at the 2018 Auckland Fringe Festival, The Auckland Theatre Awards and following a New Zealand tour, played as part of a season of New Zealand theatre at the Soho Playhouse in New York January 11-13 2020.

Ana is of Māori (Tūhoe), German, Jewish and Irish decent and is a confident speaker of Te Reo Māori. 

Ana's creative potfolio/platform link: https://kotiropublishinggiant....