Biography
Isabella works across disciplines as a production designer, screenwriter and director. She is based on Gadigal and Wangal land (Sydney, Australia). Grounded in visual storytelling, her work often explores inner worlds through layered metaphor and subjective imagery. With a background in conceptual art, she brings an experimental sensibility to her work- which has featured elements such as underwater sequences, flowers on fire, extreme slow motion, and melting curtains.
Isabella is deeply committed to gender equity, diversity, and inclusivity, values she actively integrates into both her creative work and teaching practice. Isabella holds a Master of Arts: Screen in Directing from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (2022), a Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Design from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (2014) and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours: Class I) from Sydney College of the Arts (2011).
Isabella's ten-year career in production design is marked by her ability to create immersive and detailed worlds, using spaces and objects to support storytelling. She has designed more than 80 productions. Her accolades include ten nominations from the Australian Production Design Guild (APDG) and a win for Emerging Design for The Greeks in 2014. She approaches design with a love for collaboration and a hands-on methodology. Her production design for Too Many Ethnics (2023), a short comedy directed by Vonne Patiag, won Best Production Design at the Made in the West Film Festival. She also earned acclaim for All Silent Dogs (2022), a surreal coming-of-age short by Natalia Stawyskyj, which received a nomination for Best Production Design for a Short Film, Music Video, or Web Series Award at the APDG Awards in 2023 (now available on SBS On Demand). Her work on feature film, The Greenhouse (2021), a queer magic realist drama directed by Thomas Wilson-White, is featured on Netflix. Additionally, Isabella designed short day-in-the-life tale, Furlough (2021), directed by Phoebe Tonkin, which premiered at Flickerfest. Click on the following links for: drawing and illustration, concept art, costume rendering, drafting, scale model-making, scenic art and graphic design work.
Isabella has also worked extensively in set design for the stage, with productions presented at Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney Opera House, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Riverside Theatres, Monkey Baa, NIDA, CDP, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Q Theatre, The Concourse, Seymour Centre and Sport for Jove, among others. In 2018, she was a finalist for the Dutch National Touring Opera Challenge for her set and costume designs for Jevenji Onegin directed by frequent collaborator, Elsie Edgerton-Till. With Edgerton-Till, she has collaborated on 10+ productions across children's theatre, opera and theatre.
As a writer-director, her work navigates the complexities of the human experience, blurring the boundaries between the familiar and the strange. Her short surreal drama Under the Water (2023) premiered at the 33rd Flickerfest International Short Film Festival in 2024, selected from over 3,400 submissions. Centered on an eleven-year-old girl confronting misogyny and violence in her town, the film was driven by Isabella's desire to provoke reflection in response to Australia's ongoing crisis of gendered violence. The film was awarded Best Film By A Female Filmmaker at the Setting Sun Film Festival (2025), Best Student Film at The Bay International Film Festival (2024), and was nominated for Best Student Short Film at the 2024 Australian Directors' Guild Awards.
In 2024, Isabella and her colleague, Beck Thompson, were selected to present their horror feature film project, Lyrebird as part of the Inner West Film Fest Pitching Competition. Previously, Isabella wrote and directed music video, Monska for C.R. Robin (2020), which won the WIFT Audience Favourite Award (2021), was nominated for Best Concept in the Clipped Music Video Awards (2020) and was a finalist in the Frankie Magazine Good Stuff Awards (2020).
