Nightingale began her career in film with the Ontario Film Development Corporation in the 1980s,[2] and was later an organizer of film industry conferences for the Festival of Festivals[3] and the National Film Board of Canada.[4]
In 1993, Nightingale and Paul Jay launched Hot Docs.[5] She remained the festival's executive director for a number of years thereafter.[6]
In 2000 she launched her own production company, The Nightingale Company, to produce films and television series.[7] Her most noted credits with the company included the television film Chicks with Sticks, about a women's hockey team,[8] the television drama series The Line,[9] and the comedy series Living in Your Car, which was a Gemini Award nominee for Best Comedy Series at the 26th Gemini Awards in 2011.[10] The company also announced the development of Us and Them, a television comedy series which would have starred Aubrey (Drake) Graham and Mazin Elsadig, in 2009,[11] although the series never completed production as it was around this time that Graham's career as a rapper began to take off.
Later in life, Nightingale and her husband Shain Jaffe moved to Campbellford, Ontario, where they launched Haute Goat, a public goat farm that offered visitors the opportunity to interact with the animals.[12] Over the course of her career, Nightingale also served on the boards of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus and the Toronto chapter of Women in Film and Television International.[13]
Nightingale died from cancer on July 10, 2025, at the age of 71.[1]
