Julia Loktev

Critically acclaimed director Julia Loktev tackled challenging subjects with uncompromising artistic choices with her first two feature films, the suspenseful "Day Night Day Night" (2006) and "The Loneliest Planet" (2011), which cemented her status as one of independent cinema's rising talents. Born Dec. 12, 1969 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, Loktev moved with her family to Colorado when she was nine years old. She later attended McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where she began experimenting with audio art works as a DJ at the school's radio station. These projects led to working with film and video, as well as earning a master's degree from New York University's graduate film program. In 1998, she released "Moment of Impact," a documentary about the automobile accident that left her father with a severe brain injury. Loktev then worked on a series of multiple-screen video instillations, including the challenging "Rough House," about a physically abusive relationship between a man and woman. Her video instillations were shown at a number of prominent museums and galleries around the world, including the Tate Modern in London, the Brooklyn Museum in New York and Japan's Mito Art Tower.