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Natalie Shirinian is an award winning Director, Writer, Actor, and a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Natalie Shirinian is an award winning director and the founder of the Los Angeles based production company NES FILMS. She takes an intimate and dramatic approach to her storytelling through Narrative, documentary and conceptual films.
Nataiie has been featured in Vogue, InStyle’s “Badass Women” Issue, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, T magazine, AnOther Magazine, and was Interview Magazine’s “People of Interview.”
Born and raised in Los Angeles California, Natalie is the daughter of Egyptian Armenian immigrant parents. Her mother was once discovered by Robert Duvall to be in one of his pictures, her uncle is a working actor and dancer in the industry, and her aunt was was alos an actress in her early years. The desire to act has been innate in Natalie from a young age, and at the age of 15 she entered the field professionally appearing in popular television shows, film, and commercials.
An interaction with Steve Martin on the set of the movie Shop Girl _inspired Natalie to one day want to direct. This moment eventually happened with her directorial debut of her documentary film, _Interior Motives. The film captured the connection between fashion and design through the perspectives of industry leaders like Michele Lamy, Maria Cornejo, and Tommy Hilfiger, amongst other influencers and icons. On the festival circuit the film has won, Best Short Documentary at the 2019 Berlin Short Film Festival, and at the 2018 IFS Los Angeles Film Festival. In 2021, Interior Motives was inducted into the Rhode Island School of Design’s (RISD) film collection library, and the film can now be viewed on FilmShortage.com.
The need to tell her personal story was a driving force behind Natalie’s first narrative film Hello Mother (Parev Mama), inspired by her own life in which Natalie wrote, directed, and starred in. Hello Mother, follows a first-generation Armenian American lgbtq+ 30 year old woman living in Los Angeles, faced with the repercussions of her traditional Armenian mother when coming home late after a night out with her girlfriend, Rita. The lead is on a journey of truth, coming to terms with being honest with her mother about her sexuality, and living her life for herself outside the constraints of her culture's expectations. Her short film explores the challenges of what it is like being caught between the traditions of an Armenian family that thinks marrying a man is the goal, and living her truth as a gay woman. The film is both in English, and in Armenian.
Hello Mother won Best Short Film at the Big Apple Film Festival and Screenplay competition in June of 2021, the Audience Award at the Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival, and Best Short Film at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Storytella. _HELLO MOTHER _was recently selected to participate in the prestigious virtual edition of NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with presenting partners the Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) and Dutch Culture USA (Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York). InFocus: Middle Eastern, Arab & Dutch Cinema program. The film continues to screen on the 2022 film festival circuit, and will soon be distributed across the globe.
Natalie has worked on many projects including a number of short films, including a fashion film campaign for designer Louiza Babouryan whose dresses have appeared on the likes of Elle Fanning, Glenn Close, Kilo Kash, Evan Rachel Wood, and Barbie Ferreira.
Natalie is currently in pre production on multiple projects, including a sequel, and full length version of Hello Mother entitled Little Armenia.
More of her directorial work can be found on FREETHEWORK.
She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, has lectured at FIT and RISD, and resides with her author wife Elizabeth and their Japanese chins between Los Angeles and New York.