Director and Producer at AFIN

Biography

Juliana Purnell has fostered a love for both animals and the arts since she was a little girl. After finishing high school, she volunteered at Taronga Zoo and cared for a variety of exotic creatures while completing her Captive Animal Management Cert III and Animal Studies Cert II. However, she couldn’t ignore her love of acting and narrative storytelling. Eventually she decided to change career tracks, completing a Bachelor of Dramatic Arts in 2011. Quickly developing an interest in film, she spent some time in Los Angeles to study the artform further before returning to Australia. Over the past decade she has continued to pursue her interest in acting, helped crew a number of productions for both stage and screen, and developed a career as a film critic. Making Sense of Scents is her first professionally produced film, having mainly worked in other crew roles in the past (gaffer, boom operator, production assistant), and her first foray into documentary filmmaking. She currently lives in regional NSW with her Pomeranian, Samson.