With Ngāi Tahu and Pākeha whakapapa, Alex is a creative collaborator and filmmaker based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.

Alex’s Ngāi Tahu and Pākeha whakapapa descends from Takahanga, Kaikoura and Te Aumiti, Rangitoto kit e Tonga (French Pass & D’Urville Island Marlborough Sounds).

With a Masters in Fine Arts from Elam Art School, Alex has been creating ideas and stories in motion pictures for over twenty years, collaborating with creatives, actors, writers, designers, musicians, producers and directors. 

Alex has written and directed award-winning music videos for numerous musicians including Kiwi icons like Tim and Neil Finn, Shayne Carter, ELMNOP and Hollie Smith.

In 2007, after directing for two of New Zealand’s leading commercial production companies, Film Construction and Silverscreen, Alex and producer Nik Beachman founded Thick as Thieves – a boutique visual-content production company. Thick as Thieves has become synonymous in the industry for attracting breakthrough filmmaking talent and developing some of New Zealand’s newest and exciting directorial voices.

With a deep understanding of branding, he has fostered numerous long-standing creative relationships with local and global brands. 

Over the last fifteen years Alex has directed commercials for brands such as Mitsubishi, Toyota, Spark, Speight’s, Steinlager, Kiwibank, Whittakers, Westpac, McDonald’s, Ford, The Warehouse, Holden and many more.

His award winning documentary short films have featured Aotearoa’s unknown inventor of bungy jumping in ‘The Jump’ and an entomologist who became pubic enemy number in 1970’s New Zealand calling out institutional racism and torture of children in State care in ‘When Nobody Was Looking’.

Alex’s short films and documentaries have been screened and recognized worldwide and he is presently developing a number of long form projects.