Alison Murray ran away from Nova Scotia, Canada to London, England at 15.

After several wayward years, she received a degree in Visual and Performing Arts, specialising in dance and choreography, followed by an M.A. in Film at the Royal College of Art. Her short films have been receiving critical acclaim since Kissy Suzuki Suck in 1992. Challenging conceptions of female behaviour, it televised on Channel 4 UK and later in Europe, winning awards at international festivals.

This was followed by Wank Stallions, also a festival prizewinner. Wank Stallions mercilessly confronted the desolation of young men caught between extremes of male mythology, the wanker and the stud.

Pantyhead in 1994 completed this trilogy vivisecting contemporary social and sexual attitudes, with its portrayal of fast food worker in conflict with a dysfunctional TV evangelist. Pantyhead televised on Channel 4 UK and in Germany, and toured internationally in a program compiled by the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

In 1995 Alison made Sleazeburger, shot on location at Coney Island, NYC. The same year she made Horseplay for BBC 2 which explored feisty female friendship through dance.

Many of Alison's films incorporate her unique approach to dance and in 1996 she received a Paul Hamlyn Award for Choreography. Horseplay won a Silver Key at the International Art Film Festival in Slovakia, and also televised in Holland, Germany and Belgium. Alison then made Bad Mood Woman, a tampon ad gone wrong, for Channel 4 UK, and Cat Food Woman, a sequel, for the opening of Hoxton's Lux Cinema.

In 1996 Alison directed Bloody Mess, in which violent screen fantasy meets real life responsibility, for BBC 2. Teenage Rampage, a look at ill-fated romance in South London, was for the Channel 4 series, Midnight Underground; and Bare Feet and Crazy Legs, exploring the African roots of jazz dance, was for the Arts Council of England.

Also In 1996 Alison made her debut as a music video director.
She has subsequently directed over twenty videos, and was nominated for a CAD award for Best New Director in 1997, and for Best Pop Video in 2003.

Alison's artistic activities have spanned from video installations for nightclubs to choreography for the Royal Opera House Garden Venture. She has staged two live theatre works, both in Belgium; Decent Citizens in 1993 as part of the Dirty City season, and Blood in 1996. The Institute of Contemporary Art in London presented a retrospective of her films in 1997, and again in 2004. Another retrospective of her work screened at the Tate Gallery, London in 1998. That same year her work was presented alongside Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Paul Thomas Anderson and Atom Egoyan, in Ret.inevitable at the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage. This event was billed as 'screening today's most important young visualists'.

In 1999 Alison collaborated with theatre maker Marisa Carnesky on her controversial stage show, Jewess Tattooess, creating the film element of the piece and working as a consultant director. (Previously Alison made cameo appearances in Carnesky's Grotesque Burlesque Revue!)

In 2000 Alison completed Train on the Brain, an hour long documentary for Channel 4 UK and TV Ontario, in which she rode the rails across North America armed with a DV and a Super 8 Camera, following the lives of young hobos. The film won the audience prize at the Hot Springs Film Festival, and also screened at the Seattle Underground Film Festival and the Sheffield International Documentary Festival. In June 2004 Train on the Brain screened to a huge audience at Glastonbury Festival. A new DVD release of the film is planned for late 2007.

In 2003 Alison worked on an exciting collaboration with London based rapper Jonzi D.
Aeroplane Man is a film adaptation of Jonzi D's hit theatre show of the same name. It aired on Channel 4. Aeroplane Man was the first production through HELLHOUND, marking the company's inception.

May 2004 saw completion of post production on Mouth to Mouth, Alison's first feature film (as writer and director). Hellhound is associate producer of the project, which is executive produced by Atom Egoyan, and produced by Anne Beresford of M2M FIlms and Judy Tossell of Egoli Tossell. Mouth to Mouth was shot on location in London, Berlin, and a disused vineyard in Portugal. The film features Alison's signature choreographic style, woven into a powerful narrative about a search for belonging. The film premiered at the San
Francisco International Film Festival and went on to win Best Feature Prizes at the Brooklyn International FIlm Festival, Berlin's Britspotting Festival, and Festival D' Annonay, France.

Also in 2004 HELLHOUND expanded beyond the realms of film to become a co-producer of Carnesky's Ghost Train - a real ghost train ride featuring live performers and magic illusion. This phantasmagorical journey started up in London's Brick Lane August 2004, and played at the Brit Awards and Glastonbury Festival in 2005. to rave reviews.

Alison's feature documentary film Carny (2007), following the secret life of fairground workers, broadcast on the Sundance Channel, Channel 4 (UK) and TVO. It won best documentary in the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Her latest film CAPRICHOSOS DE SAN TELMO premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival 2011.

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Alison Murray Presspack
Mouth To Mouth Presspack
Train on the Brain Presspack