
Co-showrunner and series director for the 2022 International Emmy-winning LGBTQ+ drama, Rūrangi (best short form series) Max is a gay writer, director and producer from New Zealand. His work spans writers' rooms, script writing, script editing - and directing television and feature films. In 2021 Max was awarded Best Director at the New Zealand Television Awards.
More recently, he was setup director for the new queer crime comedy drama Bust Up, a German/NZ co-production for ZDF/SKY due out 2026.
Max cut his teeth writing drama in the writers' room of prime-time serial drama Shortland Street, where he worked for five years as a storyliner, whilst moonlighting as story editor and script writer. It was also during this time that Max stepped up to write on both seasons of the 1-hour comedy drama series Step Dave.
Max's debut as a feature director was 2014's festival darling Everything We Loved (Four Knights Film). Max also wrote the script; about a duo of travelling magicians who steal a child from terrible parents to raise as their own. In 2020, Max recut and shot additional footage to turn Rūrangi into a feature film - which won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at Frameline 2020, won best International Feature at Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2021, and showed in the UK at BFI Flare 2021.
Max is a passionate ex-member of Auckland's gay-and-inclusive rugby team, The Falcons. He's a proud donor dad to two young children, who live with their Mums in Melbourne. Born and raised in New Zealand, Max is also a British citizen thanks to his Scottish father. He speaks conversation German after a year living and studying in Berlin on a Goethe language scholarship. Max lives and works between Auckland, Sydney and London.

Max Currie
WRITER / DIRECTOR