Laura Kurataya is an award-winning screenwriter, director and producer based in Meanjin, Brisbane. Her work spans commercial, narrative, documentary, music video and interactive projects.

Laura started out as a music video director and was quickly recognised as a young Australian filmmaker to watch, collaborating regularly with Sony Music Australia, and ranking as a Top Three Finalist in the QANTAS Spirit of Youth Awards.

Laura’s first short film, Comfortable, premiered in Official Competition at the Sydney Film Festival Dendy Awards and won Best Film and Best Director at the World of Women Film Festival. Her short, Happy, premiered at Palm Springs, was a My Queer Career Finalist, and received a special mention from the Australian Directors Guild.

As a commercial director, Laura was selected for the Screen Australia Gender Matters Initiative, attached to Curious Film. In 2023 and 2024, Laura worked as in-house senior creative advisor for the Queensland Government, writing, directing and producing commercial and digital campaigns for TMR.

In production, Laura travelled the country organising and overseeing promo shoots with Australia’s top talent for Network Ten, and commercial shoots for brands like Cricket Australia. Laura also directed and edited 360 VR branded content.

Before directing, Laura won a Gold ACS award for her cinematography work on short film, Stopping all Stations. She shot multi-cam live music events, and worked in the camera department on commercials and features.

Laura has worked in various writers’ rooms on long-form narrative projects and has a passion for development. She was selected to attend the Source to Screen development lab at Illuminate Film Festival in Sedona, Arizona, and the Make Diversity Reality XR Accelerator at Byron Bay Film Festival.

Laura holds an MSA in Drama Directing from AFTRS and a Bachelor of Film and Television Production from QUT. She studied physical theatre with Zen Zen Zo, acting at NIDA, and trained in dance for twelve years.