--- name: "Adrian Chiarella" canonical: "https://film.one/person/adrian-chiarella" fi1m_id: "adrian-chiarella" imdb_id: "nm3184288" tmdb_id: 1761324 wikidata_id: "Q137558143" roles: ["Epk editor","Director"] reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-03T08:18:08.664267+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Adrian Chiarella ## Identity Adrian Chiarella - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/adrian-chiarella - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** adrian-chiarella - **IMDb ID:** nm3184288 - **TMDB ID:** 1761324 - **Wikidata ID:** Q137558143 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Chiarella, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q137558143, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3184288/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1761324 Epk editor and director. Born in Sydney, Australia. ## Details - **Work:** Epk editor, Director - **Active:** 2008–present - **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 crew - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 58 (1), 2020s 80 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Chiarella, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q137558143, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3184288/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1761324 ## Fi1m on Adrian Chiarella > Adrian Chiarella makes the romance matter as much as the threat in *Leviticus*, a feature debut we recommend for its tenderness and unease. His direction trusts the young actors; his dialogue sometimes explains what they have already shown. In *Leviticus* (2026), an exorcism promises to cure two boys of their attraction, and Chiarella makes the promise itself frightening. We were horrified by the adults treating that desire as something to be driven out. The supernatural pursuit supplies a recognisable horror plot, but the community makes life frightening before the pursuer has much work to do. Chiarella’s strongest decision is to take the boys’ romance seriously, giving us a reason to care beyond wondering where the next threat will come from. Chiarella worked as an editor before directing the shorts *Touch* (2014), *Black Lips* (2018) and *Dwarf Planet* (2020). Television work followed, including episodes of *Totally Completely Fine* (2023) and *Five Bedrooms* (2023). *Leviticus* is his feature debut, and its unevenness is mostly in the writing rather than the handling of actors or place. That distinction matters in a film which could so easily have reduced its characters to examples of cruelty and suffering. Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen make the attraction convincing without needing the screenplay to underline it. Mia Wasikowska’s Arlene Reid gives Chiarella a way to consider an adult’s conflict without excusing what the adults do. He allows her that space even though our sympathies stay with the boys. The dialogue is less assured: at its bluntest, it explains the harm that Bird and Clausen have already made apparent. Tyson Perkins’s cinematography makes the rural setting feel confining, as though the boys cannot get beyond the community’s scrutiny. Bethany Ryan’s production design gives that community ordinary, inhabited surroundings, and the familiarity makes the intolerance harder to dismiss. These choices work because Chiarella does not need every location to announce that it belongs in a horror film. The prospect of growing up here is already enough to make us uneasy. The debt to *It Follows* is clear in the pursuing force that makes desire dangerous. Chiarella gives the device a specific purpose by treating the feelings being punished with tenderness, though the tension dips late on. That familiarity need not disqualify a horror film when its people matter this much. Start with *Leviticus* for the boys, and forgive the occasions when their writer says too much. ## Biography Adrian Chiarella is an Australian film director and screenwriter. He graduated from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. He wrote and directed the feature *Leviticus* (2026), which premiered in the Midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival. His earlier short films include *Dwarf Planet* (2020), *Black Lips* (2018) and *Touch* (2014). Chiarella has directed episodes of the series *Totally Completely Fine* (2023) and *Five Bedrooms*, and wrote the "Walking Gambit" episode of *Erotic Stories*, for which he received an AWGIE Award in 2025. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, deadline.com, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) ### Directed (1) - *Leviticus* (2026), Fi1m 80, Director, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/leviticus.md) ### Crew (1) — the average rests on these - *Australia* (2008), Fi1m 58, EPK Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/australia.md) ## Complete filmography (20) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Sweet Milk Lake* (2026), Script Editor - *Leviticus* (2026), Director, Writer — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/leviticus.md) - *White Fever* (2024), series, Story Consultant - *Erotic Stories* (2023), series, Writer - *Totally Completely Fine* (2023), series, Director - *Lonesome* (2023), Script Editor - *The Newsreader* (2021), series, Epk Producer - *Dwarf Planet* (2020), Director, Writer - *Five Bedrooms* (2019), series, Director - *Black Lips* (2018), Director, Writer - *Teenage Kicks* (2016), Editor - *Touch* (2014), Director, Story, Writer, Editor - *Almost* (2012), Editor - *Ostia: The Last Night* (2011), Editor - *Mogadishu Dreaming* (2010), Editor - *William Yang: The Art of Seduction* (2010), Editor - *The Love Song of Iskra Prufrock* (2010), Editor - *Suburbia* (2010), Editor - *Before the Rain* (2010), Editor - *Australia* (2008), EPK Editor — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/australia.md) ## Gallery - ![Adrian Chiarella, Joe Bird, screening of Leviticus, Culver City, Los Angeles, California, USA (2026)](https://film.one/media/person/92397/gallery-1ba1fa576807.jpg) Adrian Chiarella, Joe Bird, screening of Leviticus, Culver City, Los Angeles, California, USA (2026) — Cory Doctorow, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Adrian_Chiarella%2C_Joe_Bird%2C_screening_of_Leviticus%2C_Culver_City%2C_Los_Angeles%2C_California%2C_USA.jpg/1280px-Adrian_Chiarella%2C_Joe_Bird%2C_screening_of_Leviticus%2C_Culver_City%2C_Los_Angeles%2C_California%2C_USA.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Adrian Chiarella](https://film.one/media/person/92397/gallery-30387ecc33ea.jpg) Adrian Chiarella — Janeirohy, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Adrian_Chiarella_Sundance_2026.jpg/1280px-Adrian_Chiarella_Sundance_2026.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Adrian Chiarella, left, and Rajendra Roy, right, at the 55th New Directors / New Films opening night in the Museum of Modern Art (2026)](https://film.one/media/person/92397/gallery-f3b6209f5e8e.jpg) Adrian Chiarella, left, and Rajendra Roy, right, at the 55th New Directors / New Films opening night in the Museum of Modern Art (2026) — LR.127, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Adrian_Chiarella_and_Rajendra_Roy_at_the_2026_New_Directors_New_Films_festival.jpg/1280px-Adrian_Chiarella_and_Rajendra_Roy_at_the_2026_New_Directors_New_Films_festival.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Joe Bird, Adrian Chiarella, and Stacy Clausen (from left to right) at the 55th New Directors / New Films opening night in the Museum of Modern Art (2026)](https://film.one/media/person/92397/gallery-713f4265fd59.jpg) Joe Bird, Adrian Chiarella, and Stacy Clausen (from left to right) at the 55th New Directors / New Films opening night in the Museum of Modern Art (2026) — LR.127, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Joe_Bird%2C_Adrian_Chiarella%2C_and_Stacy_Clausen_at_the_2026_New_Directors_New_Films_festival.jpg/1280px-Joe_Bird%2C_Adrian_Chiarella%2C_and_Stacy_Clausen_at_the_2026_New_Directors_New_Films_festival.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/adrian-chiarella