Nichole Ruiz is a filmmaker from the Philippines. She has lived in Los Angeles for the last several years and has directed some great films and is also a very talented cinematographer. She remembers as a young girl being entranced by movies, so to speak. She got a chance to be a production assistant on a movie called Baka Bukas (Maybe Tomorrow) and that changed her perspective on her career. She always knew that she would work on movies when she got older, but being on that film set pushed her to commit herself to a career in the movie industry.
After that great experience Nichole researched film schools and decided on the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles and jumped a jet and enrolled. She let nothing get in her way of learning all there was to learn about filmmaking. The classes were thorough and intensive and professionals from Hollywood taught many of the classes so she got the real thing from day one. She directed projects and she also found herself highly interested in cinematography, which she pursued also.
She feels that the things we experience are often what shape us as people and as artists. Since she grew up in a third world country Nichole was always surrounded by social issues such as, mental health, family, community, LGBTQ issues and politics, among many others. She loves telling narrative stories that bring these issues to the forefront and expose them for all to see. She believes that cinematography and filmmaking in general are powerful tools that can spread awareness to social issues in a very special and meaningful way.
She experienced the effects of films on audiences when she entered her very personal film YOU in film festivals and listened to audience members tell her that the film truly resonated with them and that they felt what the characters were feeling. The film stirred up something inside of them. She remembers that a professor said to her once, “The Entertainment industry is a business of feelings,” and she couldn’t agree more. Nichole has worked on numerous films in her short but highly creative and obviously, productive career. She has worked as a director and as a cinematographer and has gotten immense satisfaction out of both positions.
