Background
Ward was born on 16 February 1956 in Greytown, New Zealand.
director screenwriter film producer
Ward was born on 16 February 1956 in Greytown, New Zealand.
He was educated at Street Patrick"s College, Silverstream and also trained at Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Ward is best known for his strongly visual and performance driven feature films. While still at art school he began writing and directing films. In Spring One Plants Alone provides the starting-point for his later feature Rain of the Children (2008).
His debut feature was Vigil (1984).
Ward"s films have earned critical acclaim and festival attention whilst reaching an international audience. Vigil, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988) and Map of the Human Heart (1993) were the first films by a New Zealander to be officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival.
Between them they garnered close to 30 national and international awards (including the Grand Prix at festivals in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United States). lieutenant grossed more than United States 200 million (all territories).
While in the United States, Ward wrote the story for Alien 3.
He also developed the material that was the basis of The Last Samurai, selecting its director, and acting as executive producer on that project before writing and directing River Queen starring Kiefer Sutherland and Samantha Morton. Vincent Ward was also nominated for best director at the Australian Directors Guild Awards for Rain of the Children. In 2010 he published Vincent Ward: The Past Awaits, part mid career chronicle and part large format film photo book
Ward is actively developing new feature film projects whilst also focusing on public gallery art projects.
In an 8-month period he had three solo exhibitions of large-scale painting, print, photographic and cinematic installation work. In 2011 he presented Breath an exhibition of paintings, photographs and cinematic installations at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth.
This was followed by the 2012 Auckland twin solo exhibitions Inhale and Exhale at the Gus Fisher Gallery and Trustee Savings Bank Bank Wallace Arts Centre respectively. He launched a third book, Inhale | Exhale, to coincide with his twin Auckland shows (Ron Sang Publishing).
His art work is featured throughout its 180 large format pages.
Ward has been invited to the 9th Shanghai Biennale 2012. He was New Zealand"s first entrant to the Biennale with one of the very few solo pavilion shows, Auckland Station: Destinies Lost and Foundation, held in an historic former church on The Bund.