Vanessa Parise is an American film director, writer, producer, and actress based in NYC, New York. Her first feature film '' Kiss the Bride'' won the Golden Starfish Award at the Hamptons Film Festival in 2002. Her television movies, ''

Perfect High Perfect High is a 2015 drama film produced by Lifetime and starring Bella Thorne, Israel Broussard, Daniela Bobadilla and Ross Butler. The film premiered June 27, 2015 on Lifetime. Plot A teenager named Amanda is obsessed with dance. She dislo ...

'' and ''Drink Slay Love'' have been named by the Lifetime’s Broad Focus initiative. Parise has been nominated for Leo Awards for Best Direction for ''Lighthouse'' in 2015, for ''Perfect High'' in 2016, for ''Beyond'' in 2018, and for ''The Simone Biles Story'' in 2019. Her television movie ''The Simone Biles Story'' was nominated for Best Television Movie and Best Lead Actress by the NAACP Awards in 2019.

Career

Parise is currently the co-executive producer and directing producer on '' Charmed''. She directed the Tim Kring series '' Beyond,'' for which she was nominated for a Leo Award for Best Direction in 2018, and episodes of the Amazon series ''Just Add Magic''. She has also directed the new series ''Andi Mack''. Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and raised in

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

, Parise ended her pursuit of a medical degree at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

to venture into the business as actor/writer/director/producer on the feature film '' Kiss the Bride,'' starring Parise and Alyssa Milano. Parise followed this with the film '' Jack and Jill vs the World'' which raised money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and then enjoyed a limited theatrical release. She has directed the television movies " The Unauthorized Beverly Hills 90210 Story", "

", and "Status Unknown". As a writer, she has sold multiple spec features including BFF. Parise sold the pilot script ''The New Twenty ''to Freeform''. ''

Nominations and honors

Parise received a 2019 Leo Award Win for Best Direction of "Simone Biles: Courage to Soar," a 2016 Leo Award nomination for Best Direction of ''Perfect High'' and a 2015 Leo award nomination for Best Direction of ''#POPFAN''. She was named by Lifetime with their Broad Focus Top 5 Original Movies 2015, and by SheKnows as one of Ten Female Directors Breaking Stereotypes in 2014. Her film ''Kiss the Bride'' won the Hamptons Film Festival’s Golden Starfish Award for Best Feature. At

Cinequest The Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival is an annual independent film festival held each March in San Jose, California and Redwood City, California. The international festival combines the cinematic arts with Silicon Valley’s innovation. It is ...

, she won the Director’s Award. She also won the Excellence In Filmmaking Award at Sarasota, Best Actress, and Best Score at Montecarlo, and Best Feature at RIFF.

Filmography

References

External links

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Vanessa Parise website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parise, Vanessa American actresses American women writers American film directors American women film directors Living people Harvard Medical School alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women