Nicole Riegel

Riegel grew up in Jackson, Ohio, a rust belt town in the Appalachian foothills.[1][2] At the age of 15, she entered a local beauty pageant and won, but gave an acceptance speech discussing why such pageants debased women and her title was removed.[3] She wanted to be a film director and applied to art schools, but though she received acceptances she joined the Army National Guard and was stationed at Fort Jackson, SC.[3][2] After her tour ended she attended Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, graduating in 2009 with a film degree.[3][2][4] She moved to Los Angeles and worked while attending UCLA, graduating with an MFA.[3][2][5]

Riegel produced a script entitled Dogfight which she attempted to get interest in; after she signed with Anonymous Content, the script eventually made it onto The Black List in 2013.[3][6]

Riegel's first film was the semi-autobiographical Holler (2020); it was based on ideas developed in a 2016 short with the same title.[1][6][7] The plot follows a seventeen-year-old Appalachian girl growing up in poverty who scavenges scrap metal from local shuttered factories to raise the money she needs to attend college.[1][5] The film is based on and was filmed in Jackson, Ohio.[2]

IFC Films acquired distribution rights to her second film, Dandelion, starring Kiki Layne; the film was due to start filming in Cincinnati and South Dakota in late 2022.[8] Release was planned for 2023.[8]

Filmmaker Magazine named her one of their 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2014.[3][9] In 2020, Variety named her one of 10 Directors to Watch.[9][5][6] Vulture called her a "major new directorial talent".[10] Variety said Holler "positions the UCLA graduate as the Debra Granik of her generation".[6]