Draft:Darren K Hawkins

Darren K Hawkins is an Australian film maker, writer, director, producer and actor. He is best known as the writer and director of "Next Door to the Velinskys" and the co-director of the low budget indie feature film The 7th Hunt

Early Life
Darren K Hawkins (born 13th October 1970) was raised in Winston Hills, New South Wales attending Northmead High School, a performing arts school in Sydney's North West, New South Wales Australia. He is the youngest of three children. His mother is a home maker, while his father, Leo, played in the feeder teams for Parramatta Eels and was a self employed cartage operator.

Career
Hawkins first career from school was New South Wales Police Force, remaining there until 1994.

Outside of the Police Force, Hawkins was a musician, playing multiple instruments, singing and writing. Bands he played in included The Basic Fact, Bent and Lament, all receiving limited radio play in the 1990's, with Bent playing on the support card for Human Nature (band) at Wonderland Sydney

Hawkins was a regular disc jockey on Alive 90.5 during the radio station's early years, co-hosting shows "Musicians of the West" and the late night "Beat Box". Both programs showcased new and unsigned bands.

The early 2000's, Hawkins started working in Cinema of Australia, in various small scale, independent and studio productions, for film and television. His first break into feature films came in 2002 with "Something About AJ", while with television 2001, Australian Broadcasting Corporation's mini series Head Start (TV series) and in 2003, working with Nicholas Hammond on the tv pilot for Joel Silver's Sci-Fi "Future Tense"

By the mid 2000's, Hawkins began also working behind camera, having worked as an assistant director on the feature films "Something About AJ", "Sum of Existence" as well as numerous short films, Hawkins was asked to direct the Buffyverse project Forgotten Memories and the short project "Rose" as a co-writer, producer and director. 2009, Hawkins acted in and co-directed the Ozploitation genre feature film The 7th Hunt. 2011, Hawkins directed and produced "Next Door to the Velinksys", later distributed by Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime.

2017's saw Hawkins return to directing with the project "The Lonely Road", which screened at 84 film festivals world wide and picked up 54 awards and nominations which led to the creation of Lonely Hill Films.

2021 saw a re-release of The 7th Hunt as "The Hunt" to the UK market.

2023, after years of script development with writer Stephen Knight, Hawkins produced and directed the feature film "The Girl in the Shadows"

Personal Life
Hawkins took time away from concentrating on his career to raise his daughter Audrey from 2005, taking on occasional acting and directing work, but choosing to place Audrey as a first priority.

Audrey and Darren appeared together in several small productions and television commercials, while Audrey appeared in several of Hawkins' film projects, as well as Stephen Wallace's feature film "A Suburban Love Story", and on Home and Away as the child of Chris Hemsworth's character of Kim Hyde