Paola Bernardini is an award-winning filmmaker focused on directing and producing in film and advertising.
She was born in Switzerland in 1991, she later lived in Tokyo, Rome, and New York and is now working between Italy and New York . She earned a baccalaureate in Economics and holds a BFA in Film from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She is fluent in Italian, French and English.
Her films have been shown in several film festivals around the world including the Cannes Court Métrage at the Cannes Film Festival for her first short film, “City of Dreams”, and recently at the Cortinametraggio where she was awarded a Special Mention for “Solitaire”, a dark comedy created by Paola Bernardini and director Wayland Bell without any crew members from start to end. For her short films she obtained several distribution deals including Vimeo and WeShort.
Paola has worked as a director and in production with HEARST: ELLE UK and Harper's Bazaar UK, BBC, Selfridges & Co, Macy’s, Ferrero Rocher, Grand Classics, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy, The Cools, Filmbuff, NYWIFT, the High Line, School of Visual Arts, as well as personalities such as Emily Ratajkowski, Lily Collins, Vanessa Kirby, Ben Pundole, artists Maripol and Andres Serrano, director Laure de Clermont-Tonnere, and acclaimed producer Andrew Fierberg.
She is a member of the New York Women in Film & Television organization who granted her an award for her film “City of Dreams” in 2015.
Paola also serves as judge on the SVA Alumni Society Alumni Scholarship Awards panel to assign grants to undergraduate students since 2019.
Story is key to everything she creates. Her film goals are to bring to light entertaining character-driven narrative features to the big screens.