Hayley MacFarlane is an award-winning Australian film and television director whose work spans feature films, scripted television and some of the world’s biggest unscripted formats.

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In 2026, Hayley directed her second feature film, Beauty From Surrender, an adaptation of Georgia Cates’ New York Times bestselling novel for Passionflix. The film marks Hayley’s return to feature directing following her debut feature Swimming for Gold, starring Peyton List, which premiered at the Gold Coast Film Festival before receiving a theatrical release across more than 100 Australian screens. Distributed by Universal Pictures, the film went on to reach international audiences through platforms including Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Hayley’s scripted television credits include the Netflix Original series Dive Club, where she was heavily involved in the writers’ room. The series reached Netflix’s Top 10 in more than 30 countries and received both Logie and AACTA Award nominations for Best Children’s Program. Hayley was subsequently nominated for an Australian Directors Guild Award for her direction.

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Alongside her scripted work, Hayley has built an extensive international television career directing and now series directing major productions across Australia, the UK and Asia. After beginning her unscripted career while based in London, she has directed BAFTA and Logie Award-winning formats including I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, Love Island Australia & UK and SAS to name a few, leading large-scale productions and directing teams across some of television’s most ambitious formats. In 2025, she worked on the Netflix US Golden Ticket Series being released later this month.  

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Hayley began her career writing and directing short-form narrative work. Her short film Growing Young, starring Samara Weaving, screened at more than 30 festivals internationally and received multiple awards, including Best Direction at the Independent Film Awards and Best Narrative Short at the Indiewise Festival. Her fashion film Harmony received the Medaille D’Onore at the Chicago Fashion Film Festival, while her graduate film Hummingbirds won the film school’s top award and went on to screen nationally and internationally, including at HollyShorts and the Byron Bay Film Festival.

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Hayley is currently writing and developing a growing slate of film and television projects, ready to get back to telling her own stories again, of which she has many!