Biography

Alice Waddington is a Spanish writer-director. Born in Bilbao, to a forensic psychiatrist and a teacher, Alice adopted her stage name at 16 while assisting cinematographer Quique López ("Sótano", "Ander"). With no initial connections in the film industry, she studied advertising at the public University of the Basque Country (UPV), and began taking stills and directing fashion films for publications including the Spanish edition of Harper's Bazaar. She worked as an advertising creative, producer, and advertising video editor at Leo Burnett Iberia and Social Noise, and also as a storyboard artist.

In 2014, she co-wrote and co-produced a short film with Mexican producer Yadira Ávalos. Her first narrative short, Academy Awards-qualifying "Disco Inferno" (2015), obtained nominations at 70 international film festivals, including Palm Springs, Fantasia, Sitges, and Fantastic Fest, where it was awarded Best Director and the Silver Feature Film Project at the film market. Fifteen additional international festival wins followed. The film toured Japan, China, the United States, and Canada for two years through multiple Best of the Fest showcases.

Alice's debut feature, "Paradise Hills" (2019), was a science-fiction YA thriller produced by Nostromo Pictures ("Penny Dreadful", "Buried"), written by Brian DeLeeuw ("Daniel Isn't Real") and Academy Award nominee Nacho Vigalondo ("Colossal", "Timecrimes"), and starring Emma Roberts, Awkwafina, Eiza González, Danielle Macdonald, Milla Jovovich, and Jeremy Irvine. The film became the second Spanish debut feature ever selected for the Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at more than twenty international genre festivals, including Fantasia, Sitges, and Mórbido.

In October 2022, Alice's first television episode for Amazon Spain premiered at the Sitges Film Festival. Co-written with Rocío Martínez, "La Pesadilla" is a remake of Spanish horror icon Chicho Ibáñez Serrador's 1967 episode, in the tradition of "The Twilight Zone". The reboot includes episodes directed by Paco Plaza, Nacho Vigalondo, and Rodrigo Cortés.

In 2026, she is adapting "Anonymous Jane" for Addictive Pictures under its genre imprint Neotext. She is also a co-writer and director on her segment "Red Shoes" for the feature-length horror anthology "Tales from the Woods", which features writer-directors including Benson & Moorhead and has been nominated at Sitges Film Festival and Fantastic Fest.

She is developing multiple feature & TV projects: In 2023, The Benson sisters, Alice and a legacy studio sold an adaptation of a NYT-Bestselling fantasy novel series to another major U.S. studio.

Ongoing development includes feature "Department H", based on the Dark Horse comic, for Netflix, adapted by "Pacific Rim: Uprising" and "Maze Runner" writer T.S. Nowlin, and "Scarlet", which she co-wrote and executive produced with writer Kristen SaBerre ("The Good Lord Bird") at MGM/Orion, under executive Panchi Simeto.
- IMDb mini biography by: M & W

Alice has said, "Growing up with a forensic psychiatrist mother and a Secret Service aunt felt like living inside a 90s procedural. I used to sit outside the door with a coloring book while they discussed gruesome cases. That was my first contact with horror.".

Came up in Madrid, Spain with the New Wave of Spaniard genre directors like Nacho Vigalondo, Eugenio Mira & Paco Plaza, a tight-knit group that has been collaborating for decades.

Women want to direct science fiction, action films, creature features. We are socialized to prioritize care and adaptability as survival skills. And whether your story is set in a parallel universe or at the 7-Eleven around the corner, without empathy for your characters, you don't have a movie!