Cristabel Sved

Cristabel Sved (she/her) has worked professionally as a director, dramaturg, performer for over twenty five years, and since 2023 she has also been working as an intimacy director.

Recently, Cristabel has made the transition into screen. Cristabel’s short film, DATE 3 was the winner of the prestigious Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director at the 2026 Sydney Film Festival. DATE 3 has also screened as part of the official selections at Flickerfest, St Kilda Film Festival, Darwin International Film Festival, and won the prize for the Best Australian Short with a female lead at the Swan Perth International Women in Film Festival. It is also currently on the international film festival circuit, screening as part of the official selections at Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival Vermont, Aesthetica Film Festival York England, and Yofifest New York.

Cristabel has collaborated with some of Australia’s leading actors, designers, practitioners and arts organisations to develop scripts and new performance works, direct theatre productions, develop and direct screen projects, and deliver programs for theatre companies, educational institutions and community arts and cultural development organisations.

Cristabel’s qualifications include a Post Graduate degree (Directing) from NIDA, a BA in Performing Arts (Theatre) from Theatre Nepean, a BA Honors (Performance Studies) from the University of Western Sydney, and level 1 and level 2 in Consent Based Work courses, with leading intimacy direction/coordination organisation for screen and theatre, IDC, USA.

For theatre, Cristabel recently directed Harold Pinter’s BETRAYAL, for Sport for Jove at the Old Fitz Theatre and is about to start collaborating with Damien Ryan on adapting a classic. For screen she is currently developing her debut feature.