Rachel is an award winning filmmaker, actor and screenwriter with a focus on female-driven films and bringing the female gaze to stories and genres traditionally dominated by a male perspective.

Rachel Noll James grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico before moving to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College. She spent over a decade in LA working as an actor, but eventually grew restless waiting for permission, auditions, and someone else to hand her a creative life. So she started building one herself.

Her first feature film, Don’t Pass Me By, which she wrote, produced, and starred in, won her Best Feature Writer at the LA Femme International Film Festival before the film was released worldwide in 2014.

She later co-wrote and produced the feature film The Storyteller, winner of the Silver Prize in the Family Film category at the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. After a successful festival run and multiple awards, the film was released on Hallmark Movies Now.

Rachel made her feature directorial debut with the sci-fi drama Ingress, a film she also wrote and starred in. The film went on to receive more than ten international festival nominations, earned a theatrical release, and is now streaming on platforms including Amazon Prime, YouTube, and Tubi.

Her most recent feature, Inheritance — a grounded family drama that she wrote, produced, and starred in — premiered at Dances With Films at the iconic Chinese Theatre in Hollywood in 2024 to a packed house and is now available to stream on Amazon Prime, Tubi and others.

As the entertainment landscape continues to evolve, Rachel has expanded into the world of vertical dramas and serialized digital storytelling. Her series Texts From My Future Self and Glou Glou Dolls are currently streaming online and providing a constant and joyful creative playground to make art with people she loves.

Rachel is also the playwright behind the new musical All Of Us, Quietly, an intimate ensemble driven piece that had its first sold out workshop production in 2026.

Rachel is the co-founder of Emergence Films, a female-focused production company dedicated to bold, emotionally resonant storytelling centered on women’s voices, transformation, and human connection. She has also served on the Jury of the Port Townsend Film Festival, and the Vashon Island Film Festival.