Ms. Lenore Rinder is an independent filmmaker based in the United States. She holds an MFA degree in film/painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has worked as a photojournalist for newspapers in Wisconsin and Idaho, and as a staff photographer for the Ballet Folk of Moscow, a touring dance company based in Idaho. She has taught film, animation, and painting at UW-Milwaukee, and was also a producer-director with Time Warner Cable’s Community Television. For 12 years, she worked as a visual communications instructor for incarcerated teenagers at the Ethan Allen School for Boys, through Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections.
In 2013, fueled by her passion for wildlife conservation, she began to make documentaries on the subject, with a focus on the marginalized indigenous communities in India. Using the video as a lens to examine the impact of environmental degradation and animal extinction on humans, she has been exploring the intersection between nature conservation and social justice issues. Her short films feature: a covert cottage industry of fake tiger skin artisans; poachers finding alternative income catching and releasing urban monkeys; a family-run craft cooperative adjacent to a tiger park in Rajasthan; and an elephant sanctuary camp in Dubare, Karnataka. As a visual artist who paints and creates animation, Ms. Lenore weaves digital images into her live action documentary footage.
Her films have been screened at several international festivals, such as Ethnografilm Paris, the Athvikvaruni International Film Festival in Tamil Nadu, and the Rome Prisma Independent Film Awards. Her film, Kagaraja, was a winner at the Tagore International Film Festival, Bolpur, India, in 2021. Ms. Lenore has received three grants from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund. In 2019, the Indian Institute of World Culture invited her to screen her documentary, People of the Wild Tiger. In 2025, her four documentaries had their world premiere in Bengaluru.
For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Ms. Lenore is making a documentary titled “Kids for Tigers, Designing Their Future”. That will be the culmination of 13 years of research, working with nature guides, villagers, and educators. Through the project, she is also continuing to film the children who are part of an educational program called Kids for Tigers. Besides, she is engaging with students at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, where she is facilitating communication between Indian and American students on art, conservation, and culture.