Highway

A troubled young hitchhiker struggles to escape a fatal prophecy on a remote mountain highway.

Produced by Tim Russell & Michael Wark. Starring Odessa Young, Andrew Gilbert, Rebecca Smart & Rhiannon Zanker. Cinematography by Edward Goldner, Production Design by Sherree Philips, Edited by Anil Griffin, Makeup by Victoria Mavromatis, Sound Design by Michael Newton, Original Score by Jonathan Adam Joseph Wilson & Beau Cassidy, Colourist CJ Dobson. 

Recipient of the ACT Screen Arts Production Fund 2015. International Sales - MAGNET FILM.

• Nominated 2018 Best Direction of a Short Film - Australian Director's Guild Award

About the Author

Vanessa Gazy is an award-winning Australian writer/director/creator.

Most recently, she created seven-part Netflix USA mystery thriller ECHOES (FKA Id), co-showrun by Brian Yorkey and Quinton Peeples and set to premiere internationally in 2022.

Vanessa also created EDEN (2021), an eight-part mystery drama for Australian streamer STAN, produced by Bryan Elsley (UK) and Every Cloud Productions (Australia). Eden was distributed by All3 Media, and was picked up by Spectrum and Canal+.

Vanessa has been nominated both Australian Director’s Guild and Australian Writers Guild awards. Her short films FOAL, HIGHWAY and SHILOH have screened internationally, most notably at the BFI London Film Festival, Warsaw International Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortfest, Melbourne International Film Festival and Fantastic Fest.

She grew up in Canberra, where she graduated from high school with Dux of the College. She went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts (Media Communications) at the University of Sydney, majoring in English Literature and Cultural Studies, and graduating with Distinction. She completed her Masters in Writing/Directing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 2014, winning the school’s prestigious Kenneth B. Myer Award for Exceptional Talent upon graduating.

She is also a Sundance 2014 Short Film Audience Award-winning producer, for Matthew Lessner’s short film Chapel Perilous. In 2013 she co-produced Lessner's feature film Automatic at Sea which had its US premiere at Slamdance 2017.