Candice Carella
About
Candice Carella studied fine art, photography and cinema at UCLA. Her first professional experience came as a wardrobe stylist and costume designer for music videos; working with Grammy Award winning artists (Eminem, Moby, Gwen Stefani) and styling large scale commercials (British Telecom, Coors, McDonalds).
Candice’s desire to work on more narrative projects led her to work in costume departments on several high profile TV shows (Sons of Anarchy, Revenge, Underground, Crossbones, 9-1-1, Inventing Anna) and feature films (50 First Dates, Haywire, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Don’t Worry Darling)
Branching out on her own, Candice wrote, produced and directed a 30-minute short “PONY,” about an unlikely connection between a jaded 80’s rock musician and a 5yo girl. Pony stars Xander Berkeley (Air Force One, Terminator 2, The Walking Dead) and Suzy Nakamura (Dr. Ken, Avenue 5, Dead to Me, Snowfall) which premiered on the festival circuit in 2015, screening in over 50 film festivals, winning 32 festival awards and gaining a worldwide distribution deal with Shorts International and Gonella Productions.
In 2017, as a recipient of the prestigious Panavision New Filmmaker Grant, Candice wrote, produced and directed a 20-minute film “THREE DAYS IN THE HOLE,” based on a true story about a young Yezidi girl's struggle to survive her ISIS capture after the Iraq genocide of 2014.
“Three Days in the Hole” was nominated for the 2018 Hollywood Film Festival Silver Screen Jury Prize, the 2018 Rome International Film Festival Best Narrative Short Film award, the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival Best long short award and is the winner of the Gold Remi Award from 2019 World Fest Houston. This film also received international distribution with Gonella Productions.
In 2019, Candice Carella directed "UNICORNS", a modern fresh take on a serious subject, surviving depression. Unorthodox, and at times jarring, the film, starring Malik Yoba (Cool Runnings, New York Undercover, Designated Survivor, Empire), Markees Christmas (Morris From America, Black-ish), and Hilary Curwen (Bad Nannies, Happyland) ultimately shows us that we are not alone in our struggles. Unicorns won Best Short Film at the 2020 Beloit International Film Festival, Best Actor at the 2019 Catalina Film Festival and won special mental health awareness prize at the 2019 Marina Del Rey Film Festival. Carella is a member of Women in Film and the Alliance for Women Directors and a fellow in the 2022 AWD Directing the Actor Lab.
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