About

Tenika Smith is a graduate of Australia's prestigious Victorian College of the Arts. Her final year film 'Thanks for the Ride' took out the school's top undergraduate script prize and was later selected to screen at several film festivals, both local and international, including the Melbourne International Film Festival, Las Vegas Film Festival and Flickerfest. 

An alumni of the Melbourne International Film Festival's 'Accelerator Program' (2013) for promising Australian and New Zealand filmmakers, Tenika's experience directing extends to the world of corporate and commercial filmmaking including productions for a number of global companies such as Coles, Salesforce.com, Mercedes-Benz, Tempur, OMO and Australians in Film.  

Since 2018, Tenika has been directing at Australia’s longest standing serial drama, Neighbours (Fremantle). In 2019, she joined the second season of The Heights (Matchbox/For Pete’s Sake Productions) for the ABC which was nominated for Best Drama Series at the 2020 AACTA awards. In 2021 Tenika was nominated for two Australian Directors Guild Awards in the TV or SVOD Drama Serial category for her work on The Heights and Neighbours.

Tenika directed 5 episodes of the second series of ITCH (Komixx Entertainment) on ABC Me. In 2021 she was the set-up director on the children’s television series Rock Island Mysteries (Nickelodeon/Fremantle) which was nominated for Best Children’s Program at the 2022 AACTA’s.

She was also the set-up director on Turn Up the Volume (Matchbox/Film Camp) which was released in 2023 and she received an ADG award nomination for her work on episode 6. Turn Up the Volume was nominated for Best Children’s Program in the 2024 AACTA awards, after also receiving a nomination for the same award at the Logies.

Tenika was the set-up director on Paper Dolls (Helium) which was released in December 2023 and is currently available to view on Netflix in Australia and New Zealand.

Tenika most recently directed on both the first and second season of Return to Paradise, the spin-off of the popular crime comedy-drama Death in Paradise for BBC Studios Australia. The first season of Return to Paradise was awarded the Most Popular Drama Series award at the 2025 TV Week Logie Awards. The show is currently available on the ABC in Australia and BBC in the UK.

Info

REPRESENTATION

AUSTRALIA

Cameron’s Management

+61 2 9319 7199

jonah.klein@cameronsmanagement.com.au

USA

Echo Lake Entertainment

+1 (310) 789-4790

PERSONAL

tenika.l.smith@gmail.com

+61 401 602 039 (AUS)

+1 347 223 8652 (USA)