Kirsty MacDonald graduated from University of Auckland with a Masters in Creative and Performing Arts in 2007. She has directed several short award-winning documentaries. Her short film Black and White has shown at over 40 international festivals since 2006, winning both "Best Short NZ Documentary" and "Best Emerging Director" in the 2006 Documentary New Zealand International Film Festival. She has written two feature films and several short dramas as well as working on numerous short dramas during her Masters degree. MacDonald has a background in music and performance, as a member of a Wellington-based travelling theatre company, and as a solo and group performer of original acoustic music in the United States and New Zealand for fifteen years. She has performed in and produced five albums, as well as cocreating several animated shorts for New Zealand’s International Puppet Festival.