About Nicole Conn
Writer/ Director/ Editor/ Mother

Nicole Conn is recognized worldwide as an author, screenwriter, director, producer and film editor. She has written eight novels, a parent’s guide, two teleplays, 13 screenplays and produced six soundtracks. She may be best known, however, for her films, which include Claire of the Moon, More Beautiful For Having Been Broken, A Perfect Ending, Elena Undone and little man.
A die-hard film fan from the age of nine, Conn's astute eye, expert directing skills and quality production values transform her screenplays into works of art. Intelligent, powerful and intimate, they resonate with women of all ages for their sensitivity and concern with issues of the moment.

She wrote the script and produced her first film, Claire of the Moon, in 1993. The Boston Globe called it “handsome, heartfelt, intelligent, and beautifully atmospheric.” A hit, it paved the way for lesbian-themed cinema and grew to cult status. It was also a first for lesbian cinema when Conn generated products from the film, including a novelization (now in its 15th reprint, along with 10th and 20th Anniversary editions), making-of documentary, soundtrack, tee-shirts, posters and more.

Conn has produced seven films since then, most recently More Beautiful for Having Been Broken (2020). Distributed worldwide through Vision Films, it has won over 32 Best Awards from the 2019–2021 festival circuit. The Advocate calls it "her most personal film yet." 

In 2015, she conceptualized and directed Jen Foster's She as a national anthem for civil liberty. Following that, she directed a seven-minute short entitled SHE4ME, which was sponsored and endorsed by Marriage for Equality, USA. It won the Community Award 2015, OutMusic's Music Video of the Year Award, and has been viewed on YouTube more than 2.5 million times.

Her excellence in dramatic and adult storytelling is evident in still another critically acclaimed film, A Perfect Ending, which won five Best Feature awards. Curve called it "the sexiest film of 2012." It's now the single bestselling film of its genre, and its sneak preview has been watched online 86 million times. Netflix has relicensed this film 4 times as it’s always in the Top Ten Hot Films on Netflix!

Conn’s Elena Undone, released in 2010 and re-released in 2020 for its 10th anniversary, won four Best Feature awards and is hailed for its longest on-screen kiss in cinema history. This classic romance with a twist became the bestselling film of its genre that year. It’s been picked up by Hulu in 2021.

 Her award-winning short film Cynara: Poetry in Motion was released in 1996. It’s an innovative, sensitive glimpse into the passion between two accomplished women living in an era where such feelings usually went unfulfilled. Reviewers have called it “artistic, beautiful and sensuous.”

 Conn was a finalist in the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting.

little man, a personal film in the truest sense, was released in 2005. A hard-hitting documentary Conn wrote, directed, and produced, it's about her son's premature birth. Born 100 days early and weighing only one pound, he spent his first six months in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The film won 12 Best Documentary awards, along with the prestigious Cedar Sinai's Courageous Beginnings Award and Family Pride's Family Tree Award. It made three Top Ten Films 2005 lists, and Showtime picked up the feature and ran an Emmy campaign on it. 

Following its release, Conn offered counsel and emotional support to other overwhelmed parents who found themselves caught in the confusion of a NICU. She also collaborated with Preemie Magazine founder Deborah Discenza to create The Preemie Parent's NICU Survival Guide: How to Maintain Your Sanity and Create a New Normal (Preemie World LLC, 2010). She continues to offer her support to this day.

Early on, Conn’s talent as a writer resulted in a three-book deal with Simon & Schuster. Her first novel, Passion's Shadow (1995), has been reprinted 3 times. A script adaptation of her second, Angel Wings (1997), won the 2001 Telluride Film Festival's Best Screenplay Award. Time Warner chose her third novel, The Wedding Dress (2001) for its new internet endeavor iPublish, which debuted that same year. She Walks in Beauty was first published in September 2001 and again in 2015. Conn has also written novelizations of three of her films.

Conn believes in giving back to the community. She sponsored the Claire of the Moon Scholarship, which awarded second-time novelists through the ASTRAEA Lesbian Foundation for Justice. In 2020, she conceived Nicole Conn Films Global (NCFG), a widening community of movie fans and industry partners who are committed to helping finance quality projects for LBGTQ+  filmmakers. 

A mother of two, Conn lives in Los Angeles with her son, Nicholas, who at 18 is still very special needs and remains medically fragile. He was the basis and inspiration for More Beautiful For Having Been Broken. Her daughter, Gabrielle, a talented actor who is a theater/education major, made her debut in that same film. Conn is currently writing the script for her next feature, Do We Not Bleed, and finalizing her epic tome, Descending Thirds, which is in development as an episodic miniseries.

Conn's ability to tell stories that hit home is "greatly rewarded," she says, by all the fan mail she receives from viewers who've watched her films multiple times. "If there ever was an earmark of success," she adds, it's "in someone wanting to see my work over and over and over again.”