Anna Wilding is a New Zealand award-winning director, actress,, writer, producer and still photographer. She works in both the mainstream and independent/art house American movie and television business.
She directed and/or co-produced major music videos for major rock stars and labels.From 2015-17, she served as White House Correspondent and on-air broadcaster. Her work appeared in magazines, newspapers and on air.
Her acclaimed "CELEBRATE HOPE-the Obama Collection" exhibit will be touring in 2019-20 . She was a judge in the Australian Atom Film and TV Awards in 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2018.On October 10, 2017, she spoke out to ABC Radio/New York, about her experiences with Harvey Weinstein.
Her interview was picked up by mainstream media worldwide and went viral. She had been on the record in prior years speaking out about the "casting couch". Around 2006, Wilding stood up and spoke out at a Directors Guild event about the lack of female directors following yet again, another all male panel.
In 2007, Wilding was also specifically thanked for her important and powerful consultant/producer work on all three "Lord of the Rings" films (filmed in her native New Zealand) by such producers and studio executives as Mark Ordesky and Bob Shaye.
As an actress, she played the first "battered wife" (Gail) ever seen on prime time New Zealand television on the long running, award winning Shortland St. Clips of her work on the show were exhibited at that year's TV Awards; the show won for Best Drama TV Series.
Wilding directed and starred in the theatrically released and popular award winning and critically acclaimed hit feature documentary film Buddha Wild Monk in a Hut. (as Narrator/Presenter and Director, Writer and Producer.
Anna's additional responsibilities also included cinematography). Warner Bros/WEA. The film qualified and was considered front-runner for the Oscars, is archived at Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences by official invitation, played out of competition at Sundance, and was nominated for and won an award in Best Feature Documentary USA by Kids First and the Coalition Of Quality Media -a collection of major US studios; the film played for over 60 days in cinemas.
Other notable films directed by Wilding include "Pop Culture Punk Art", which was selected for Cannes SFC 2010, and "White Sands", and the feature documentary "Faultline" about the New Zealand earthquakes.
From ages 10-15 she was a competitive tennis player. Headlines read at the time, "Wilding Keeps the Flag Flying." Wilding won her first tournament at the age of ten after hitting balls with a stick against a shed in a country paddock.
Her family could not afford the trip to Florida to train with Bolitteri. She was first discovered as an actress by a New Zealand agent and then discovered by visiting Disney casting directors at the age of 16, who urged her to pursue an acting career internationally.
She left for Australia and the USA in her teens to do that, working successfully on TV in comedy shows, feature film, and professional theater in New Zealand and Australia and then London and the USA.
Professional theater shows included: Heloise and Abelard, Dazzle (at Auckland Town Hall), Midsummer's Night Dream (off-Broadway in New York), and When Harry Met Sally (Pasadena Arts Center, Los Angeles).
Wilding has undertaken several guest star appearances including performing live at the televised Celebrity West Coast New York Tony Awards 2000 in the USA.Among other major music videos Wilding directed and/or co-produced for artists ranging from Rolling Stones to UB40, Stanley Jordan, and David Parker.
In 2005, her long-form music video "Rebel In Me" (made for the International Songwriter of the Year 2004-World Music Awards-Moana and the Moa Hunters) was nominated for 2005 Los Angeles Femme Film Festival and played to rapturous applause in a packed house in downtown Los Angeles.
Wilding's music videos have been seen on extensive play at MTV, VH1, etc.Wilding won her first acting award as "Best Actress" at the International Theatre festival at the age of 19 for the comedy "The Patience of Silence", a play which she also wrote, directed and produced.
She was known for her improv and professional Theatresports (improv comedy) player and won the "Audience Favorite Award".In New Zealand, she was short-listed for the lead role in Jane Campion's "An Angel At My Table" but didn't appear in the final audition.
Before traveling to USA, she took up an acting scholarship she had won at the prestigious VCA in Melbourne, a winter program studying with a renowned New York method coach. Wilding was 1 of 25 actors, selected by American nationwide auditions to the former National Shakespeare Conservatory New York program (Yale) where she studied directly under one of Meryl Streep's tutors.
This was a serendipitous turn as Wilding had often been compared to a young Streep in range. Wilding's audition was held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles (former home of the Oscar telecasts).
Wilding moved to Los Angeles by herself at the suggestion of casting directors Wilding did not have a mentor in Hollywood, and worked three jobs in production and editing houses at one time, to support herself.
Here she collaborated on major music videos and long form rock documentaries with major pop and rock icons and earned producer positions in key production houses leading to directing and producing major rock music videos for major artists.
Wilding, unwilling to deal with the "casting couch", still prevalent in those years, put her acting career on hold multiple times. She worked and enjoyed the challenge of the craft and business aspects of production.
She continues to work in both freelance and executive ranks of the mainstream movie business.She was soon an executive on several high profile independent film companies including Moving Horse Pictures out of London.
She made an industry name in production and in-house producer and Exec positions in the mid-late 1990s in the mainstream commercial independent feature film scenes in LA and London. Wilding had a hand in many significant and award winning films and projects.
Industry insiders nicknamed her the "queen of the independents". As an executive of production companies in the 1990s, she was one of the first women in recent Hollywood history to fight for equal pay, and opportunity in Hollywood.
It was rarely forthcoming and it is a fight that continues by women in Hollywood to this day.Wilding founded the registered charity Wilding Foundation. In February 2011, Wilding started an emergency relief fund-raising appeal for victims of the earthquake in her hometown of Christchurch.
She returned to NZ to work on the ground voluntarily for the charity over a year.
