CHIRLA-Produced Film America’s Family Wins Grand Jury & Audience Awards at Dances with Films
CHIRLA-produced film America's Family wins Grand Jury & Audience Awards at Dances with Films Film festival in Hollywood, California.
Producer, Writer & Director Nadia Voukitchevitch, Founder of Nadia Films.
LOS ANGELES , CALIFORNIA , UNITED STATES , June 29, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The drama America’s Family3 was a jury and audience favorite at the 25th annual Dances with Films festival in Los Angeles, claiming the Grand Jury Award for Features and Audience Award for Competition Features when the fest wrapped on Sunday, June 19th at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
The film from writer-director Anike L. Tourse and produced by Nadia Voukitchevitch, Angelica Salas, Daniel Sollinger and CHIRLA is the story of the Diaz family home when it gets raided by ICE on Thanksgiving Day. The mother Marisol (Tourse) was put in detention, her son Koke (Ricardo Cisneros) was deported, and patriarch Jorge (Mauricio Mendoza) fled for protective sanctuary.
Marisol and Jorge’s two American-born children—young attorney Emiliano (Emmanuel López Alonso) and his his differently-abled teen sister Valentina (Jailene Arias) scramble to reunite the family as their parents and brother fight to get home.
“Producing this film was beyond a work of love for me. It is a privilege for to be able to support an organization that has been fighting and advocating for immigrants’ rights for generations. I have always believed that this is a country is made up of immigrants from all over the world. It’s an honor for me to support CHIRLA and Angélica Salas for over 17 years, a non-profit very close to my heart that has been advocating for immigrant rights for generations. We hope that our film sparks a bright light on those already aware of the need for immigration reform and those new to the subject” said Voukitchevitch.
Work has taken Nadia to many foreign countries for Film and TV productions including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Dominican Republic and Cuba. Thankfully, she’s picked-up several languages including French, Catalan, Valenciano, Creole, Russian, and is fluent in Spanish.
In High School, Nadia was chosen as part of the Future Filmmaker’s Workshop at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. She became President of the Video Club at Washington Irving H.S. where she made her first animated film and won a Drama Cup at a local city competition for playing opposite roles: male and female in the same play by Lope de Vega in Spanish. While living in Spain, she did Theater acting and took her first courses in Photography while completing her Baccalaureate at the Instituto de Bachillerato de Miguel Hernández. Several of her B&W photographs that were exhibited in NYC were bought and published by Paramount. She used the money to invest in more 35mm camera equipment.
Nadia’s career began with Good Machine Inc. working on low budget independent feature films while still in college, with mentors, Ted Hope and James Schamus. She was lucky to work with indie Directors Nicole Holefcener, Hannah Weyer, Tod Haynes, Hal Hartley, Eddie Burns, and Ang Lee. A few years later she was working on big budget Hollywood features such as Hurricane director Norman Jewison and Music of the Heart with Wes Craven. Chosen as a Finalist for Documentary by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences after graduating college, Nadia has always worked her way up, from Locations Intern, Key PA, Production Coordinator, Assistant Producer, Script Supervisor on features, to 1st Assistant Director, Line Producer, Producer and eventually Executive Producer on TV commercial sets. She worked every department that would hire her on feature films, she also did TV Shows on CNN, MTV, VH1, and BBC, and worked on music videos for Celine Dion, Trick Daddy, Juan Luis Guerra, Jennifer Lopez...
Then one day out of the blue, she was asked to be the Agency Producer at one of the top US Hispanic Advertising Agency’s with Fortune 500 clients, including General Motors, Pontiac, Anheuser Busch, Bacardi, Castrol Oil, an offer she could not refuse. It gave her the opportunity to work with the best commercial production companies in the nation both for the US Hispanic Market and the General Market.
In 2001 she moved to Los Angeles after accepting one of two job offers - to work at a top production house or a small Ad Agency that was looking to grow, she choose the latter, and contributed greatly towards the success of the Agency for the next 4 years winning 19 new business accounts out of 20 pitches, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, Dole, ICI Paints, CSK Auto Parts, Mervyn’. She also produced for pre-existing accounts Toyota and McDonald’s.
Despite being offered Producing jobs at other reputable Hispanic Agencies such as Global Hue, Lopez Negrete and La Agencia D’Orci amongst others, in 2005 she decided to pursue her more creative side by moving on to directing - something she told her father she wanted to do when she was 10 years old after watching Citizen Kane and Metropolis. She directed, produced and wrote several short films and documentaries as well as PSAs pro bono for non-profits Esperanza Community Housing Corp and CHIRLA, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights who awarded her a certificate of recognition.
Nadia recently produced a short comedy film Ending Up starring Jenica Bergere and Matt Letscher that has been doing very well in the festivals circuit.
Nadia just ran a 5k for BrittaCares: helping children survive cancer - after 10 years since her last Honolulu Marathon that raised 8 million for APLA and the fight against AIDS. https://www.nadiafilms.com2
ABOUT CHIRLA - Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles
CHIRLA was founded in 1986 to advance the human and civil rights of immigrants and refugees. CHIRLA became a place for organizations and people who support human rights to work together for policies that advance justice and full inclusion for all immigrants.
For more information about CHIRLA's Mission and History visit: https://www.chirla.org/who-we-are/about-us/mission-history/1
Jasmin Espada
Espada PR
+1 818-521-3807
email us here
WATCH NOW: America's Family Official Trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz-kInViMx0
1 https://www.chirla.org/who-we-are/about-us/mission-history/
2 http://www.nadiafilms.com
3 http://youtu.be/Yz-kInViMx0
