Lucy McKendrick
Directing
Biography
Lucy McKendrick is an Australian-American actor, writer, director, and producer. Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, she graduated from the American Film Institute Directing Conservatory, where she honed her craft in both narrative storytelling and directing. Early in her career, McKendrick founded her own production banner, Loose Tooth Productions. McKendrick's work in short film established her reputation on the international festival circuit. Her documentary Toombaworth (2012) garnered the Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year award at the Byron Bay International Film Festival. It earned multiple honours in the United States. In 2013, her documentary also achieved Best Documentary at the St. Kilda Film Festival. She expanded her narrative work with the short B'Gawk: A Chick Flick (2017), which won Best International Short Film at the Oxford International Film Festival in the United Kingdom. In 2023, McKendrick wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the short film Fuck Me, Richard (2023), playing the lead role of Sally and co-directing with Charlie Polinger. The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival. It was nominated for the SXSW Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short and for the Seattle International Film Festival Short Film Competition Award in the Live Action category. She received the Best Director award for this work at the Australian Women's Film Festival the same year. McKendrick has also contributed as a producer on larger projects, including the feature The Plague (2025), for which she was nominated in 2026 for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature, shared with collaborators Derek Dauchy, Joel Edgerton, Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, and Lizzie Shapiro. Her films have been screened at festivals worldwide, including Palm Springs, Melbourne, Nashville, and Warsaw, and have been recognised by Vimeo's Short of the Week and Staff Picks.
Known For
A socially awkward tween endures the ruthless hierarchy at a water polo camp, his anxiety spiraling into psychological turmoil over the summer.
The Plague
A noblewoman's exile leads her twin to assume her identity in a plague-sealed medieval kingdom. As she navigates deadly court intrigue with her daughter, she questions whether safety behind castle walls is worth the price of brutality.
The Masque of the Red Death
An anxious and ungainly teenage boy struggles against bullies, puberty, and his fears of mortality when his parents send him to a summer water polo camp.
Sauna
Teddy, the daughter of a private prison mogul, becomes obsessed with a charismatic inmate, Fangs. Consumed with desire for the self-proclaimed ‘psychopath,’ Teddy risks everything as her life spirals spectacularly out of control.
Fangs
Two distinctly disparate characters come together over a broken down Volkswagen Beetle in this sweet, amusing tale of love, loss and... car trouble.
We Keep On Dancing
Recovering from a broken leg, a romance-obsessed loner finds herself swept up in a passionate long-distance love affair. Richard is perfect in every way, except that he may be a scammer.
Fuck Me, Richard
A live-action movie revolving around the Bratz doll line.
Untitled Bratz Film
Two long-distance lovers search for a way forward (or backward) when the bedrock of their twenty-year relationship cracks. A midwestern rumination on loving across space and time.
Hiawatha
In the summer of 2011 twenty Peace Corps Volunteers returned to Sierra Leone, West Africa. For most of them, it was the first time returning to the country since they had served in the 1960’s and 1970’s. They came to reconnect with their friends in Sierra Leone. It was an auspicious time for their trip. The nation was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary of independence from Great Britain. The year also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corp's arrival in Sierra Leone.
The Peace Corps Returns
A marginalized town on the fringes of Australian society, Toombaworth is called home to Tayla. Alongside her hoodlum mate Maggie she drifts through the days, unaffected by the drugs that destroy her home and the choices that rob her of a childhood.
Toombaworth
A young religious couple seeks out a secret abortion.