Dr Lee-Jane Bennion-Nixon

Biography

I am an independent filmmaker, researcher, and educator with over 25 years’ experience in film and television studies and production in the UK and New Zealand. As Senior Lecturer Research for the Sonic Screen Lab in the Screen School, my work bridges professional filmmaking and academic inquiry, focusing on fiction filmmaking as practice research. My research explores creative decision-making, collaborative production dynamics, and questions of equality and inclusion in screen industries, with an emphasis on innovative storytelling.

My films have screened internationally and won awards, including Morris Loves Birds (Carlton TV, 2000), The End and Back Again (UK Film Council Digital Shorts Fund, 2002) FILM LINK: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi310903321/. Shopping For One (Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School, 2011), The Nightwood Society, and most recently About the Night (2023), a short fiction film examining small acts of kindness and barriers to innovation in production.

I supervise doctoral research in fiction filmmaking, practice-led research, filmmaking pedagogy, and equality and inclusion in screen production, with particular interest in projects that integrate cultural studies, feminist theory, and collaborative creativity. I welcome interdisciplinary approaches that explore innovative production methods, socially engaged storytelling, and the critical intersections of film with questions of power, identity, and representation.