Jonathan Messer
Tejas Verdes, by Fermin Cabal, is Messer’s most recent theatre production and is the second creative collaboration with Red Stitch Actors Theatre, following the successful run of Vincent in Brixton by Nicholas Wright in 2005. In October 2005 Messer participated in The Sloan Film Summit at the Tribeca Film Institute in New York, where he screened his short film Joshua Tree. Earlier in 2005 Messer served as A.D. to Jim Sharman in the production of Three Furies at the Sydney Opera House. He has also directed and co-produced music videos for the bands Tiltmeter, Nokturnal and 67 Special. A graduate of the MFA program in directing at the AFI (in 2002), he has worked as a production assistant for the Kennedy-Marshall Company and an intern at Killer Films in New York, working in pre-production on the Todd Haynes film Far From Heaven. Messer is also a graduate director from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney. He also has significant television experience, having worked in London at the BBC as an Assistant Director and Floor Assistant in Drama and Light Entertainment on hit shows such as Absolutely Fabulous, Top of the Pops, Blue Peter, and The Hello Girls. Messer is the recipient of a Queens Trust Scholarship and an Ian Potter Foundation Grant. He is currently working on a documentary called A Sign of Life about the war between Israel and the Hezbollah. Jonathan Messer was awarded a Production grant at AFI in 2001 for Joshua Tree