Nolen Sternkopf (he/him) is a Portland, OR based independent filmmaker who is is constantly feeding his passion for storytelling and cinema with exciting new projects, many of which deal with the supernatural and twisting genre elements in creative ways. Nolen has been making films since he was 14, initially collaborating with Nathan Stafford and teaming up with Drew Crosby soon after. In 2021 he graduated from San Francisco State University with a bachelor's degree in Cinema.

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Recently Nolen has written, directed and produced several short films, including Fire Hill, an SFSU senior thesis film inspired by bloody, shlocky horror films of the 80s/90s and Austin Powers-esque character comedy. Fire Hill has now screened at four film festivals and won a best acting award at the Oregon Screams Horror Short Film Festival for Drew Crosby's performance as the lead character. Since then, Nolen completed a 45 minute crowdfunded horror/noir micro-feature film, Rotten Shadows, which premiered at a private screening in July 2022. Nolen also shot a sci-fi disaster short film set in the late 1930s, The Battle of Grovers Mill, which is inspired by the work of Orson Welles and is currently in post-production. Pre-production for Nolen's first full length feature film is planned to begin in the near future.

 

Nolen's biggest inspiration is Sam Raimi, who he refuses to shut up about, and some of his all time favorite movies include The Evil Dead, Ghostbusters, Dawn of the Dead and Spider-Man 2. Other influences include George Romero, John Carpenter, Mike Myers, Orson Welles and many others. His favorite TV series has been Better Call Saul since 2015, and there's no music he listens to more than that of Weird Al Yankovic and

The Beach Boys.