Nic Bettauer is a filmmaker and writer who loves to witness, share, and advocate others' stories, to photograph decisive moments, and to travel. She appreciates hearing tales as much as telling them, meeting characters as much as creating them. Nic seeks to be an experimental learner and a good conversationalist.

Nic is the author of CANARY (2025), the raucous, harrowing, deeply engaging tale of an irreverent detective investigating a social ill, perhaps at her own expense. She is adapting the novella into a streaming series.

Nic wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning feature film DUCK, starring the sublime Philip Baker Hall (www.duckthemovie.com). Set in a world bereft of common sense or decency, duck1 n. is about a duck who saves the life of a man & duck2 v. is about taking shelter. Read an interview with Nic here & here.

Nic wrote the novella DUCK redux (2026) as both allegory and memoir, peopled and storied by her work as a volunteer crisis counselor in Los Angeles, helping and holding others pain. The book revisits the feature film DUCK (2005) which Nic wrote and directed as a cautionary tale set in the near (but at that time avertable) future. However, with society devolving and history repeating, DUCK redux takes place present day. This book is written in the hopes, still, of effecting change.  

Nic co-wrote and will direct the Academy Nicholl Fellowship Semifinalist and Austin Film Festival Finalist THE CIRCLE GAME, a singular love story at the heart of dual family dramas about nature, nurture, and the courage of caregiving.

Nic volunteers as a crisis counselor @ Crisis Text Line / 988, as an equine facilitator @ Pegasus Therapeutic Riding Center, and as an animal caregiver @ Guide Dogs of the Desert, and St. Francis Equine Sanctuary.

Nic holds an MFA from USC School of Cinematic Arts, MSW from USC School of Social Work (Dean's Scholar), and BA from Stanford University (with Distinction). She enjoyed additional undergraduate studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Her multimedia reel can be viewed @ www.NicsPics.net.