Biography

Daniella DeVinter is an Anglo-Danish filmmaker, writer, and academic with an unhealthy interest in stories of sickness and obsession. Born in Whitechapel, East London, she was the first in her family to go to university, studying German literature at Oxford before defecting to Cambridge to write her PhD—an offbeat biography of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. An award-winning writer and director, Daniella is best known for Unwell Woman (2024), a gothic horror about hysteria and its haunted legacy, and her DIY one-woman-show shorts—Perfectly Undone (2021), Writer’s Block (2022), and Sick of It (TBC). She has also directed independent music videos (Bad Actors, Ode to Apocalypse; 2023) and made documentaries on women’s sexual health in collaboration with Headspace. In television, she writes crime dramas for major broadcasters, including Before We Die (2023, Channel 4/PBS), starring Lesley Sharp as a rogue detective taking on a crime matriarch, and Patience (2025, Channel 4/PBS), starring Ella Maisy Purvis as a neurodivergent archivist who helps solve a series of murders. Patience has received praise for its groundbreaking representation, with all autistic characters played by autistic actors. Neurodivergent and chronically ill, Daniella uses her work to explore themes of misfitting, unruly bodies, and minds that refuse to behave. She speaks three languages fluently, three less fluently, and tells stories in all of them.