Film Forum

Born in St. Petersburg, Julia Loktev emigrated from the Soviet Union to the U.S. at age nine. She has made both fiction and documentary features. MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART I — LAST AIR IN MOSCOW has won the Gotham Award, the National Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards for Best Documentary/Non-Fiction, was nominated for a Spirit Award and shortlisted for the Oscars®. It was named one of the Top 10 Films of the Year in The New York Times, New Yorker, New York Magazine, NPR Fresh Air, and Slate. It played at Berlinale, New York Film Festival, Berlinale and IDFA’s Best of Fests, played theatrically at Film Forum and in limited release across the U.S., and is streaming on MUBI. THE LONELIEST PLANET starring Gael Garcia Bernal, premiered at Locarno, screened at the New York Film Festival, received the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Film Festival, nominations for Best Director at Independent Spirit Awards, and Best Feature at Gotham Awards, and was chosen by IndieWire as one of the “100 Best Films of Last Decade.” DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT premiered at Cannes in Directors’ Fortnight, received two Gotham Awards nominations, and earned the Someone to Watch Award at Independent Spirit Awards. Her documentary MOMENT OF IMPACT won the Sundance Film Festival Documentary Directing Award and the Grand Prize at Cinéma du Reél, screened in New Directors/New Films at MoMA, and was an Independent Spirit Awards Truer Than Fiction nominee. Julia is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Emerging Icons Award from the George Eastman Museum.

Ksenia Mironova is an exiled Russian journalist now based in New York. When she was 22, her home was searched and her partner, also a journalist, was arrested for “treason.” He remains in prison today. Ksenia’s work focuses on political prisoners, on Ukrainians who have suffered due to Russia’s invasion, and on the repression of human rights in Russia.




Elena Kostyuchenko was a longtime investigative journalist at Novaya Gazeta, garnering international recognition for her coverage of corruption, LGBTQ rights, environmental issues, and the war in Ukraine. Her book I Love Russia: Reporting From A Lost Country was one of The New Yorker’s Top 10 Books of the Year and a New York Times recommended read. 




Kirsten Johnson’s DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD premiered at Sundance 2020, where it won the Jury Prize for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling. Listed by The New Yorker as one of the films that “Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking”, the movie won the Primetime Emmy for Directing, made the Oscar® shortlist and is currently showing on Netflix. Her previous film, CAMERAPERSON, has been included on several Best Films of the 21st Century lists and was also shortlisted for the Academy Award®. Her camerawork appears in Academy Award® winner CITIZEN FOUR, Academy nominated THE INVISIBLE WAR, and Cannes winner FAHRENHEIT 9/11. She is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (only 5% of members are female).

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