ALBANY — Noëlle Gentile’s new short film “I Was Here” airs on WMHT’s “TvFilm” series on July 10. With the local premiere of the new film following festival screenings around the U.S., the former Albany High School drama teacher is now a writer-director, a published author and an acting coach with a long list of high-profile Hollywood projects on her resume.
For Gentile, the filmmaking journey has been anything but linear. She has always been enchanted by “the communal aspect of making something together and storytelling.” In elementary school, she performed theater, a passion that she would continue to pursue after graduation. After moving to the Big Apple, she worked with New York State Theatre Institute and created a handful of short films. However, constantly auditioning and “waiting for someone else” to allow her to make art took its toll. So instead, she began working as a theater teacher.
In Brooklyn, Gentile piloted her own theater program at a local public school. It was her first time “devising new work with students,” and it was an incredible experience for her, she recalled. Once she had her first child, Isla, she moved back to Albany, but continued working in the intersection of theater and education. Teaching at Albany School of Humanities and Albany High School for nearly a decade was “one of the most life-affirming periods of time for me in terms of work and creation,” she said. She was moved by the creativity and lived experiences of her students, who she collaborated with to create deeply personal theater pieces like “Hers,” which explores what womanhood means to teenagers in the 21st century…