Daniela Lavender

Actress
Writer
Producer

David Portnoy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a 15-year-old birding fanatic, makes an unbelievable discovery: he might have taken a photo of a supposedly extinct duck that hasnÃ¢Â€Â™t been seen in North America since 1878. Upon the counsel of the Young Birders Society, David's high school birding club, he takes his finding to a legendary ornithologist, Dr. Konrad (Academy Award-winner Ben Kingsley) to solidify the claim. With his original photo too blurry to confirm bird's identity, Konrad recommends they find the duck again before it migrates in order to get a better account of this lazarus species, but this time using a quality camera.

David and his ragtag birding crew (Alex Wolff, Michael Chen) embark on an epic road trip to solidify their place in birding history - and with girls. Enter Ellen (Katie Chang), who is in possession of the quality camera they seek and tags along under one stipulation: she takes the first photo of the rare duck. As they encounter other birders and a certain doctor who just might want to steal their claim, what initially seemed like fun exercise in birding could turn into a journey of discovery in more ways than they all hoped.

Play trailer2:09

A Birder's Guide to Everything (2013)

Born in Bahia, Brazil, Daniela Lavender is part of a close knit 30-strong family, at the age of eight she began training in ballet, jazz, contemporary dance and later studied Flamenco dancing under Roberto Amaral and Yolanda Arroyo in Los Angeles. She then moved into journalism and received a degree from PUC University, Drama followed at Dirceu de Mattos school in Rio de Janeiro, studied English for a year and then traveled to London. She auditioned for the London International School of Performing Arts, playing 'Queen Anne' from Shakespeare's Richard III, and passed the audition in spite of the language barrier. In 2003 Lavender appeared in the independent film "Emotional Backgammon" and was awarded "Best Actress" at the Denver Film Festival. From there she went on to appear in "Ali G Indahouse" and the BBC series "Longitude", "EastEnders" and "Casualty". Then in 2009 Lavender toured with the British Shakespeare company production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", playing Hippolyta and Titania. 2011 saw Lavender star as "Maria" in a one woman show "A Woman Alone" written by Dario Fo. Then in 2013 Lavender Pictures her co-owned film company started the process of developing a slate of scripts including "Taj" "Zorra" and "Jutland". This spring Lavender will been seen in the role of "Juliana Santos" in "A Birder's Guide to Everything" which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2013 and was awarded the Heineken first runner up audience award, then later in 2014 Lavender will also been seen as "Mata" in Isabel Coixet's new film "Learning to Drive" and "Clara" in "Zipper" produced by Darren Aronofsky.