Nicholas’ debut feature film, Boys In The Trees, made its world premiere at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival before screening at festivals around the world including Toronto, Busan, Sitges and winning Best Feature at the Austin Film Festival. The script won the NewDraft Award at NewFest and was also nominated for the Monte Miller AWGIE Award. It’s now available to stream on Netflix (USA, UK) and Stan (Australia).
In 2019, Nicholas won an Australian Directors’ Guild Award for his work directing the indigenous series, Grace Beside Me. His other television work includes directing the BAFTA and Emmy award-winning Nowhere Boys for Matchbox Pictures/ABC/NBCUniversal, The Unlisted for Aquarius Films/ABC/Netflix and Itch for Komixx/ABC/BBC. He also has three original series in development as creator – Crazy Fun Park with the ABC, The Gathering funded by Screen Australia and The Unseen, based on the true story of Anne Hamilton-Byrne and her Family cult.
His short film work includes Hugo (winner of the Grand Prize for Fantasy at the Rhode Island International Film Festival), Flight (a Tropfest finalist) and The Last Time I Saw Richard (funded through Screen Australia’s Springboard programme and winner of several awards including Best Short Film at the 2014 AACTA Awards and Best Emerging Filmmaker at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival).
As a director, Nicholas has attended the Berlinale Talent Campus, Binger FilmLab Directors Coaching Programme (Amsterdam), trained with Song Of The Goat theatre company (Poland) and was awarded an Asialink Arts Fellowship to work in robotics labs in Beijing in 2015. In 2017, he became a Churchill Fellow to study show running practices in the USA and UK.
As one half of installation art duo, MerryVerso, Nicholas has also designed artworks with Hermione Merry for the Yarra Ranges Council and worked with boys on remand at the Melbourne Juvenile Justice Centre to create Nocturne: Forgotten, a multiform work incorporating an 18 speaker sound wall, video projections and experiential installation where audiences are invited to step inside the emotional landscape of these boys and their forgotten voices.
He is also a DJ under the pseudonym of DJ Versey Verse and has started one of Melbourne’s most popular Friday nights on Brunswick St.
Projects on file
WRITERNicholas Verso
