The Center for European and Russian Studies (CERS) in co-sponsorship with the South East European Film Festival (SEEfest) and presented by SEEfest Borderlands/Nowhere Dialogues invite you to Screening Excerpts from Recent Award-Winning Ukrainian Films. The screening excerpts will be followed by discussion with a panel, including prolific filmmaker Polina Herman. This event is hosted by the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media and will take place in-person in James Bridges Theater on January 22, 2024 at 3:00 PM. RSVP required.

About the Panelists

Polina Herman is an LA-based Ukrainian producer and the founder of UP UA Studio, which she established in 2016. Following a degree in marketing & advertising, she completed film studies at the Kyiv University, and in 2023 took a producing course at UCLA Film School. In her native Ukraine she worked as PR director and festival producer, transitioning to film production with several documentaries, shorts and music videos to her name. Her film, The Price of Conflict participated in the 38th IDA Documentary Awards earning the ABC News VideoSource nomination, and documentary King Lear: How We Looked for Love During the War premiered at SEEfest in 2023.

Kate Kotsiuba is a Ukrainian director who started her career as an assistant casting director and worked on international projects in Ukraine and Europe for Film.ua, Сanal+ and Netflix. She also directed several short films and music videos, wrote several screenplays, worked for an international media company as a director until the war started and she was forced to immigrate to the US and start from scratch. Kate is currently working as an assistant editor on a feature-length documentary in New York, writing a script for a feature-length film, and working on pre-production for a music video for a New York-based indie singer.

Vlad Kimchuk is Los Angeles-based Ukrainian film director and writer working in commercials and movies. He started as a standup comedian and later debuted as a showrunner on a teenage series, then began directing movies and commercials. He is now the highest-grossing Ukrainian film director and three out of his four feature films are streaming on regional Netflix, his feature films Crazy Wedding (2018) and Crazy Wedding 2 (2020) were the number-one Ukrainian films of the year. Having started as a writer, he became the showrunner of How The Style Was Tempered, then mastered directing popular comedies. He also dabbles in other genres: independent shorts, particularly story-driven films mixing action and thriller elements. After the spectacular success of his second feature film, he moved to the US where he obtained an MFA in Filmmaking, and took part in the Fulbright Graduate Student Program.

About the Moderator

Toni Bell is a documentary consultant, archival researcher, and impact producer for films like The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales and Fruits of Labor. She’s been a mentor and industry representative at Berlinale, Doc Society’s Good Pitch Local, Hot Docs, Sheffield, Korea Communications Agency, Big Sky, and more. She’s the former Filmmaker Services Manager at the IDA, overseeing the fiscal sponsorship program. She’s the creator/host of the u0022What’s Up with Docsu0022 Podcast and holds an M.A. in Visual Anthropology from USC, M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Naropa University, and a certificate in professional screenwriting from UCLA. 

Venue

James Bridges Theater
235 Charles E Young Dr E
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Parking

Parking at UCLA requires a valid permit at all times. Campus parking is available 24-hours a day at varying prices. Parking Structure 3 (P3) is closest to the event venue. P3 rates: $4.00 - $15.00 (1 hour - all day). Visit UCLA Visitor Parking for information about where to park and how to pay.

Download file: 1-ku-lix.pdf

Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, Department of Film, Television and Digital Media, South East European Film Festival (SEEfest), California Humanities