Dina Korzun

Dina Korzun possessed enough talent, beauty and onscreen presence that she was bestowed with the highly complementary nickname "the Russian Julia Roberts." The theater-trained actress lit up the screen with powerful portrayals of women who struggled to find identity, love and inner peace in a post-modern world. She reached international acclaim with a riveting performance as a Russian immigrant seeking political asylum in England with her 10-year-old son in Pawel Pawlikowski's "Last Resort" (2000), a documentary-style film that was entirely improvised. Korzun was equally poignant as the long-suffering girlfriend of a rock 'n' roll veteran (Rip Torn) who engages in a torrid affair with his son in the 2005 drama, "Forty Shades of Blue." She entered a dreamlike world in "Cold Souls" (2009) as a hired "mule" who traffics the extracted and frozen soul of actor Paul Giamatti to Russia. Korzun sparkled with originality and intellect in all of her award-worthy performances, and her ease of enveloping into character and stealing scenes from veteran actors were but a few of many reasons the actress deserved the critical accolades she had received throughout her career.