Roseanne Liang

Roseanne Liang is a New Zealand film director. Her first feature film, My Wedding and Other Secrets, was the first theatrically released feature film made by a Chinese New Zealander and became 2011's highest grossing local feature film. She also co-created, directed, and co-wrote the 2021 TV series Creamerie.

Early life Liang was born in New Zealand to Hong Kong emigrants. Her parents were doctors, one was a doctor and the other a nurse. She has two sisters.

She went on to study computer science at the University of Auckland.

Career Liang made her directorial debut with the autobiographical documentary film Banana in a Nutshell (2005), which was about her own cross-cultural romance with a Pākehā. The film won Best Documentary at DOCNZ International Documentary Film Festival. Liang won Best Director of Documentary Films at Asian Festival of First Films. where she met John Barnett, a producer from South Pacific Pictures, who requested a feature length adaptation of the documentary. In 2008, she was awarded Women in Film and Television International's Woman to Watch Award for Women in Film and Television. Kothari and Liang later cofounded the Pan-Asian Screen Collective with others in August 2018 to support Asian filmmakers in New Zealand.

In 2017, she directed a short film Do No Harm, which was selected to be shown at the Manhattan Short film festival and the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

In 2020, Liang directed and co-wrote Shadow in the Cloud, a WWII action-horror film, starring Chloë Grace Moretz from a story treatment by Max Landis. It debuted at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice Award. In the same year, Liang also contributed to The Women Writers' Handbook.

Filmography Short film Year Title Director Writer 2005 Rest Stop 2008 Take 3 2015 Sugar Hit 2017 Do No Harm

Documentary film Banana in a Nutshell (2005)

Feature film Year Title Director Writer 2011 My Wedding and Other Secrets 2020 Shadow in the Cloud

Television Year Title Director Writer 2008 A Thousand Apologies 2021 Creamerie 2024 Avatar: The Last Airbender 2025 Murderbot

Web series Year Title Director Writer Notes 2013 Flat3 12 episodes 2016–2018 Friday Night Bites 2017 Unboxed 6 episodes

Personal life Liang is married to Stephen Harris, the subject of Banana in a Nutshell. They have two children. Best Director of Documentary Films — Asian Festival of First Films Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award (2012)