Alexandra Liveris

I have traveled the world and been invited into people’s homes and inner lives to co-create the telling and retelling of their experiences and personal mythologies across sensitive themes of refugee crises and nationhood; freedom of speech and artistic practice; personal loss and rebuilding; and motherhood in relationship to the climate crisis. I’ve learnt the subtle art of creating a deeply safe space for intimate conversations and a strong ethical practice of consent around shaping those conversations into filmic language and films. I’m currently co-directing a film (across Finland, Kenya, the Amazon, India and Iraq) entitled “Natura” about what it means to bring new life into a dying planet, with award winning National Geographic photographer and filmmaker Nichole Sobecki and produced by Insignia Films. I am directing “Dark Side of the Moon” helmed by award-winning director and producer Sophia Banks about the state of women’s health in America.

My films have screened in over 150 US cities and around the world at premiere festivals and film retrospectives. “Eyes of Exodus” won the Jury Award at Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, the Audience award at Aspen ShortsFilm Festival and the Vimeo Staff Pick “Best of the Month.” The documentary is optioned for a feature adaptation by Faliro House. “Nocturnity” premiered in competition at Tribeca Film Festival, covered by Indiewire, Complex Magazine and Deadline Hollywood. “Santiago Calatrava” follows the acclaimed architect as he designs New York City’s Oculus building at Ground Zero. The film premiered at DocNYC, Nowness and the Prague City Gallery. I created a series of shorts for Google Creative Labs filmed in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia that received a record-breaking 18 million views in its first week online. I have worked with Hayden Thorpe of Wild Beasts, Xander Ferreira of Gazelle, The Brother Moves On, BCUC, Thomass Jackson and Findlay Brown on music videos in South Africa, Mexico and Australia. “Parallel Kingdom” is an experimental film made in the desert of Saudi Arabia in collaboration with the artist Abdullah Al Othman.

I recently co-directed a film about a groundbreaking Alzheimer’s trial with Academy Award winner Louie Psihoyos for Oceanic Preservation Society. I previously worked as a writer and story producer for National Geographic, “The Charlie Rose Show” and as the co-founder of Rethink Refugees for the Clinton Global Initiative. I received a BA in International Relations from Tufts University and a MFA in Documentary Film from Stanford University, along with the Flaherty Film Seminar Fellowship and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Ignite Fellowship. I’m deeply interested in the art of storytelling through somatic practice, ritual repetition, and threshold exploration based in the belief that studying and reviving myths can recalibrate and deepen our relationship with our bodies, community and the cosmos. With this philosophy, I’ve spent five years studying and performing with John Gould Rubin’s Private Theater, Scott Friedman at Stella Adler’s Studio and with Maggie Flannigan; am a certified Jivamukti Yoga teacher with ongoing yogic and meditation mentorship, and a dedicated student of plant medicine in the Shipibo-Conibo tradition of Peru. I explore this intersection through my poetry project The Poet Tree Collective which you can read here.