Nicole Betancourt
Parent Earth
Producer, Director, and Strategist
New York City, New York
Nicole’s work is driven by a search for new ways to use images and stories to heal and connect people to each other and to nature. She does this through documentaries, video art, music videos, community building projects, and by helping others do great work. Her creative projects have earned her an Emmy Award, many festival awards, two fellowships and praise by media around the world, including The New York Times, Variety, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Her work has led to thousands of community events and discussions and she has spoken on panels and conducted workshops for numerous institutions, including the Sundance International Film Festival, Independent Feature Project, Ford Foundation and Columbia University.
Nicole was the Producer, Director and Videographer for Before You Go (HBO documentary that won an Emmy and a Golden Spire at the San Francisco International Film Festival) about her father who died of AIDS in 1993. She was Producer and Videographer for 90 MILES (POV/PBS), which won Best Documentary at both New York Latino International Film Festival and at Festival de Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano in Cuba.
She has created many short videos for distribution online or for advocacy screenings. In 2018 she directed and edited “Sing The Water Song,” a short music video created with Native American grandmothers to teach women of the world to sing to the water. Her previous shorts include Changing Course about Hurricane Mitch and farming in Central America and two salsa music videos with Jose Conde to motivate Latinos to vote. Nicole was granted a Food and Community Fellowship (funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation) to create Parent Earth and a video series (70 shorts) that educate parents about healthy food and food systems. She produced short video series for Efran Films including Influencers and Innovation, an eighteen-part series for Huffington Post, and ALIVE, an award-winning six-part series for The Weather Channel.
Her video artwork includes Video Designer and Producer for Milk-n-Honey, a multimedia play and Video Artist on Partes de Agua, a collaborative multi-media installation.
She was the Creative Director and then Executive Director of MediaRights, a nonprofit organization dedicated to media for social change and the award-wining Media That Matters Film Festival. She is a Sustainability Leaders Network Fellow and has served on juries and panels for film institutions and competitions including the Emmy awards and New York State Council of the Arts. Nicole also was Vice President of Membership for the board of New York Women in Film and Television. As a consultant she advises filmmakers, artists and organizations on programs, fundraising, outreach and creative content.
Nicole lives in New York City with her husband, a sound designer and composer for theater and film, and their two daughters. She is currently in postproduction on a personal essay film. She loves to travel with her family, have long dinners with friends and be in nature whenever she can.
Selected Videos
Sing The Water Song- https://vimeo.com/273112273
Influencers and Innovation: Jessica Mathews- https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/influencers-and-innovation-jessica-matthews_us_5b2a68a8e4b07e56fdaa05ff
Updated October 2018.