Arielle Nobile (born November 26, 1979) is an American film director and producer known primarily for her documentary work. She has won multiple awards for her film
Belonging In The USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty
'. These include Best Documentary from Borderscene Film Festival, Award of Merit from the Impact Doc Awards, Excellence award from Docs Without Borders Film Festival, Hugo Television Award and Honorable Mention from the San Francisco Black Film Festival. In 2012, Nobile also directed and produced ''Belonging In The USA: The Story of Alicia & Antonio'', ''813 Lake Street'', and ''Belonging In Boulder: Unexpected Stories From Your Neighbors'', which won a Hugo Television Award of Merit.

Early life

Nobile was born in

Evanston, IL Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...

, and grew up in

Wilmette, IL Wilmette is a village in New Trier Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. Bordering Lake Michigan and Evanston, Illinois, it is located north of Chicago's downtown district. Wilmette had a population of 27,087 at the 2010 census. The ...

, USA. Nobile is the daughter of Michelle Williams, a fiber and bead artist, and art teacher, and Jeff Williams, an attorney. At age 9, Nobile began studying at

Piven Theatre Workshop The Piven Theatre Workshop is located in Evanston, Illinois and was founded by Joyce and Byrne Piven. For over 30 years, it has existed both as a professional theatre company and a training center for children and adults. Famous alumni to come out ...

and then, during high school, went on to become a part of the Young People’s Company at Piven. Nobile then went on to a teaching

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners ...

at Piven Theatre Workshop; upon graduating from

New Trier High School New Trier High School (, also known as New Trier Township High School or NTHS) is a public four-year high school, with its main campus for sophomores through seniors located in Winnetka, Illinois, United States, and a campus in Northfield, Illinoi ...

in 1997, she relocated to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Career

Nobile attended the experimental theater wing of

New York University Tisch School of the Arts The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the ar ...

, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA) in

Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

in 2001. After graduating from college Nobile returned to

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

and taught at Piven Theatre Workshop. She then went on to study directing at

The Second City The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise and is the oldest ongoing improvisational theater troupe to be continually based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre op ...

Chicago, IL (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, followed by teaching there. After many years as an

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

, Nobile founded the compan
Legacy Connections Films
in 2005, a film company that produces broadcast-quality documentary films for families throughout the world. In 2018 Nobile was named one of the Ten Filmmakers to Watch by Independent Magazine. In 2022, Nobile was invited t
TedX Wilmette to share how The Simple Art of Listening Can Be Revolutionary
In 2022 Nobile accepted the role of Dean of Equity and Inclusion fo
Purposeful Planning Institute
Arielle with Camera 2015

Belonging In The USA

During the 2016 presidential election, Nobile noticed, along with many others, the divisiveness that was happening in the USA. This partly inspired Nobile to start the documentary film series Belonging In The USA: Stories From Our Neighbors. “I could not sit by and do nothing,” said Nobile, “I would not allow myself to fall into the pit of the “us vs. them” polarization trap.” The series was created as a way to connect humanity through the life stories of freedom fighters. Each film in the documentary series is framed by historical and cultural influences, wisdom garnered as a result of lived experience, and what belonging means to each subject in their own life context. The first film in the series, Belonging In The USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty, premiered in February 2019 at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, CA. It tells the story of professional storyteller Michael D. McCarty. The story of a man who, even in the face of great obstacles, spreads joy wherever he goes. Michael shares his varied life experiences. Including times as an aspiring scientist,

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

member, FBI target, soldier, drug addict, health nut, and storyteller. Arielle Nobile with Michael poster

The second film in the series is title
Belonging In The USA: The Story of Alicia & Antonio
It was filmed in Chicago, LA, and

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

in 2018 and is currently in post-production. It features the life stories of a poet, political activist, and professor

Alicia Partnoy Alicia Mabel Partnoy (born 1955 in Bahía Blanca, Argentina) is a human rights activist, poet, college professor, and translator. After Argentinian President Juan Perón died, the students from the left of the Justicialist Party, Peronist politica ...

and her filmmaker, activist husband Antonio Leiva. Alicia and Antonio are both political refugees forced into exile after being imprisoned and tortured for their social justice work during Argentina's

Dirty War The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 a ...

of the 1970s. The third film in the series is title
Belonging In The USA: The Story of the Tsuchiya Family
The film is currently in production and is filming in Chicago,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

Manzanar Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one o ...

, and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It features Lourdes Nicholls and her journey to discover and share the life stories of her grandparents. Lourdes's grandparents were incarcérées at Manzanar, a California Japanese Internment camp during

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and her mother Fumi was born there.

Personal life

Nobile splits time between US and Argentina with her husband and daughter.

Filmography

* 2008: 813 Lake Street * 2011: Belonging In Boulder: Unexpected Stories From Your Neighbors * 2019: Belonging In The USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty * 2018: Belonging In The USA: The Story of Alicia & Antonio * 20.. Belonging In The USA: The Story of the Tsuchiya Family

Awards

* 2012: Hugo Television Award of Merit * 2018: Impact Doc Awards. Award of Merit, Belonging In The USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty * 2019: Borderscene Film Festival. Best Documentary, Belonging In The USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty * 2019: Docs Without Borders. Excellence Award, Belonging In The USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty * 2019: San Francisco Black Film Festival. Honourable Mention, Belonging In The USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty * 2019: Awareness Festival, Los Angeles, CA: Special Jury Awards 2019 - Uplifting Award: “Belonging in the USA: The Story of Michael D. McCarty”

References

External links

Belonging In The USA website

Legacy Connections Films website

Arielle Nobile on IMDB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nobile, Arielle 1979 births Living people