Virginia K. Heath (born 1959) is a UK-based New Zealand film director and academic; she is a professor of film at Sheffield Hallam University. In 2002 she won the John O'Shea Film Award for the best New Zealand short film by a New Zealand director residing abroad.
Biography Heath was born in Havelock North, in the North Island of New Zealand. She studied film at Saint Martin's School of Art in London, England, in 1985 and 1986. She began her film career directing a series of international arts documentaries for the Channel 4 Television series ‘Rear Window’.
Heath was commissioned by the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre to create a film to highlight the issue of human trafficking. She carried out interviews with exploited girls and women, and frontline agency workers, and created the film My Dangerous Loverboy. A website and social media channels were later added to aid increased engagement with the film, and the overall project won a cross media award from the National Film Board of Canada and was nominated for a Royal Television Society Award. The film is extensively used in schools and youth centres, and with frontline agency workers across the United Kingdom.
Heath was also commissioned by Creative Scotland and the BBC to create a film for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. The resulting film, From Scotland with Love, combined film with live music created by King Creosote and was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland award.
Filmography +YearTitleRoleNominations and awardsNotes2019Three Chords and the TruthDirector2018Lift ShareDirectorWinner, Best Sound Design, Underwire Film Festival, 20182016We Are All Migrants2014A Century in Film: from Scotland with LoveDirectorNominated for Best Feature Documentary, BAFTA Scotland, 20142009My Dangerous LoverboyDirector WriterWinner, National Film Board of Canada Cross Media Challenge Award, 20082008Little Lost David: Devil Don't MindDirector Writer2005Point AnnihilationDirector Co-screenwriter2001RelativityDirector ScreenplayWinner, Best Short Film, Berlin International Film Festival, 2002 Winner, John O'Shea Film Award at New Zealand Drifting Clouds Film Festival, 2002
Nominated for European Film Academy Awards, 20021998Deep FreezeDirector Screenplay1997Songs from the Golden CityDirector1993Getting to the PointEditor1992Carlo Levi Stopped HereDirectorLooking Both Ways: Berlin-istanbul1991The Crusade through Arab EyesEditor1989Diamonds in Brown PaperEditor1988Perfect Image?EditorHell to Pay1986The Passion of Remembrance1985Pandora's BoxDirector Screenplay
Editor1984Deptford WivesDirectorOn the TopDirectorPhotographic ExhibitsEditorCouncil MattersEditorLives of Artists Not Wives of Artists: Women's Art Practice since 1970Editor1983Talking HistoryEditor1978LoretteEditor Dubbing
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