Cole Bacani is a Filipino-American director, writer, and director of photography. He was born on December 10, 1997 in Stamford, Connecticut; but he spent most of his life in the Chicago suburbs. Cole is an alumni of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. In 2016, he received a Crystal Pillar of Excellence for his cinematography from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Cole focuses on painfully awkward and brutally honest coming-of-age stories.