Roseanne Liang is a New Zealand film director.^[1] Her first feature film, My Wedding and Other Secrets, was the first theatrically released feature film made by a Chinese New Zealander and became 2011's highest grossing local feature film.^[2] She also co-created, directed, and co-wrote the 2021 TV series Creamerie.

Liang was born in New Zealand to Hong Kong emigrants. Her parents were doctors, one was a pediatrician and the other a surgeon.^[3] She has two sisters.^[4] Liang attended St Cuthbert's College, Auckland, and was dux of the school in 1995.^[5]

She went on to study computer science at the University of Auckland.^[3] She graduated with a Masters in Creative and Performing Arts in 2003.^[4]

Liang made her directorial debut with the autobiographical documentary film Banana in a Nutshell (2005), which was about her own cross-cultural romance with a Pākehā.^[6] The film won Best Documentary at DOCNZ International Documentary Film Festival.^[7] Liang won Best Director of Documentary Films at Asian Festival of First Films.^[7] The film was screened at New Zealand International Film Festival 2005,^[8] where she met John Barnett, a producer from South Pacific Pictures, who requested a feature length adaptation of the documentary.^[4]

That project later became the romantic comedy My Wedding and Other Secrets (2011).^[1] The film won Best Actress and Best Screenplay Award for a feature film at the Aotearoa Film & Television Awards.^[2]

Liang also directed the short film Take 3, which won awards in 2007 at the Berlin and Valladolid Film Festivals, and the hit web series Flat3 and Friday Night Bites.^[9][10] In 2008, she was awarded Women in Film and Television International's Woman to Watch Award for Women in Film and Television.^[5]

Liang is a part of the Thousand Apologies Collective, a creative cohort of seven writers and filmmakers based in Auckland, New Zealand, which includes Shuchi Kothari and Serina Pearson. They made their television debut with their pan-Asian sketch comedy series A Thousand Apologies on TV3, New Zealand's first prime time Asian program.^[11][12] Kothari and Liang later cofounded the Pan-Asian Screen Collective with others in August 2018 to support Asian filmmakers in New Zealand.^[13]

In 2017, she directed a short film Do No Harm, which was selected to be shown at the Manhattan Short film festival^[14] and the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.^[15]

In 2020, Liang directed and co-wrote Shadow in the Cloud, a WWII action-horror film, starring Chloë Grace Moretz from a story treatment by Max Landis. It debuted at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice Award.^[16]

Short film

Feature film

Television

Web series

Liang is married to Stephen Harris, the subject of Banana in a Nutshell.^[17] They have two children.^[16]

• SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year (2005)^{[18][importance?]}
• Best Director of Documentary Films — Asian Festival of First Films^[7]
• Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award (2012)^{[5][importance?]}