Nicole Rinaldi is a Director and Designer with a particular interest in short form for its capacity for experimental filmmaking. She’s resourceful- she took an old watercolor set and construction paper and turned it into a short that became an official selection at Animayo, an Academy Qualified festival. She’s young- but that’s because she hit the ground running. She completed the BFA program at Emerson in three years, becoming the youngest to do so. She’s a garden weed that cracks concrete- thriving where it’s unexpected for her. She also loves that metaphor for her work: taking inner conflicts and desires and bringing them to the surface. She takes her below-the-line experience in cinematography and production into an interdisciplinary approach to directing and design. She specializes in two types of stories: the ones that keep her up at night and the ones that calm her to sleep. She works with personal stories in a vulnerable and authentic way, particularly about mental health and what makes life worth living. That doesn’t always mean drama- catharsis can come from very simple, yet evocative narratives about comfort. Her work visualizes inner conflicts and the stories we tell ourselves through poignant, symbolic imagery and design. Most illustrative of this is “When the Wolf Comes Home”, where the film’s color palette is derived from bruising. The lighting and design of the film depict growth and set-backs in the healing process for a dysfunctional family. more...