Michelle Joy is a filmmaker who loves working with actors to create real and genuine performances. She focuses on building safe and supportive sets where people feel comfortable exploring important and sometimes difficult topics.
Her debut feature film, SUNDAY (2014/15), was released across New Zealand and Australia, screening in over 50 cinemas and reaching audiences via television (Rialto Channel, GEM, Māori TV), VOD platforms (iTunes, STAN, Google Play, Bigpond Movies, Xbox, Sony), DVD, and airlines (Jetstar and Air NZ). The film garnered multiple festival nominations and won awards including “Best Foreign Feature” at the Female Eye Film Festival and “Best Female Actor” at the NYC Independent Film Festival.
Michelle has also directed brand commercials showcased on national television, in cinemas, and online across Australia. Most recently, she led the creative direction for all media content for the government-funded RMHive app, which supported the mental health of healthcare workers during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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"Director Michelle Joy announces herself as one of Australia’s brightest young directional talents as she takes the script written by herself and real life and on-screen couple Camille Keenan and Dustin Clare and turns it into a thought provoking relationship drama that well and truly draws its audience in."
- Subculture Media
"Sharing writing duties with real-life partners Clare and Keenan, the direction of feature debutant Michelle Joy skilfully crafts a realistic portrait of tarnished love"
- Screen-Space
"This is an honest, heartfelt, skilful, admirable, and truly likeable film. Bravo."
- The Dominion Post
"In a bumper year for New Zealand cinema Sunday can hold its head up high as a fine meditation on both human relations and the relationship we have with the places in which we live and love."
- FilmGuide