DIRECTORS YURIY GAVRILENKO - Festival Director, Board of Directors Yuriy is a New York-based visual artist, filmmaker and provocateur. In the early 1990's he co-founded the "Album" publishing house - the publisher of "Who Is Who In Contemporary Moscow Art Scene". In 1997 he produced "New York Tusovka" - a documentary about Russian art activities in New York. Over the last three years, Yuriy has co-produced such films as "20 Cans of Chunky Beef Soup" - a documentary about a homeless Russian artist, "Friends My Ass" portraying the lives of seven young Russian professionals in New York City, “Public Figure” a docu-portrait of famous artist and writer Yuriy Kapralov, and "Bass Baritone" a chamber portrait of Yevgeny Nikitin, opera star of the Mariinskiy Theater. He is currently working on an animation project on the legendary muse of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lilia Brik. ANNE BORIN - Board of Directors Anne Borin hails from, Detroit, Michigan. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from NYU's Graduate Film and Television Program and worked for a decade as a Newsfilm and Sound Editor at ABC's 20/20 and then as a Film Editor for indie documentaries including the PBS documentary THE EXILES. She became active in the New York Film Community through her involvement with the New York Film/Video Council, one of New York's oldest film societies, and served as Vice President under distributor and indie film champion, Leo Dratfield, and then as President of the Council. She helped to ignite the landmark Glasnost Film Festival and in 1988 she was asked by Moscow film critic and screenwriter, Leonid Gurevich, to bring a program of American films to the 1st International Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Documentary Film Festival --"Message to Man". She became the Festival's U.S. coordinator and due to her efforts in establishing the festival in North America more than 200 American documentaries and short films were seen at the Festival. From 1998 to 2002 she served as Executive Director of the New York EXPO Film Festival extending its purview internationally. As a Producer's Rep and consultant she has sold and represented films from former Eastern Bloc countries and has placed films in numerous international film festivals both in the United States and abroad, (including the Sverdlovsk All-Union and the International Minsk Women's Festivals) creating an extensive network of programmers worldwide. She serves as friend and advisor to the RED SHIFT festival and is a great proponent of "Transit-Cinema"! DARYA ZHUK - Board of Directors Darya Zhuk is a filmmaker, DJ and entrepreneur. Originally from Minsk, Belarus, she first engaged in the practice of filmmaking at Harvard University, from which she graduated cum laude in 2002. Her small format moving pictures have been shown in Moscow, New York, Berlin, Austria, Slovakia, Italy, and Poland. The first documentary she produced in 2006, A Journey of Dmitry Shostakovich, has been screened at the Louvre Auditorium in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York, and has been officially selected to film festivals in Estonia, Thailand, Spain, United States, Czech Republic and Great Britain. In 2006, she also started turnstyleTV, a film distribution company, in order to promote her own films and jumpstart moving picture projects of her friends. For the past 3 years, she enjoyed closely working with Red Shift Festival as a curator, marketer and organizer. VISSARION JUGASHVILI - Director of Programming, Board of Directors Writer and Director. During the nineties after graduating from the Academy for Film Screenwriters and Directors (VKSR), Vissarion worked in Georgia and Moscow where he created a series of short films: a philosophical fable "The Stone", Gruzia-Film, 1996 (the film received awards at the Moscow Film Festival St. Anna and the Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany), a comedy "All-Consuming Power of Art", VKSR, Moscow,1997, "Among us", Eureka TV Broadcasting Company, Georgia, 1997 - a story of an artist in Tbilisi. He also worked in theater: "Court Tale" Moscow, 1997 (I Act play). Later he turns to documentary: in collaboration with German colleagues he makes a film about his grandfather Yakov Jugashvili - "Stalin's Son" MDR, Germany and ARTE, France, 2001 and a documentary about disabled children "The Others", Georgian TV, Georgia, 2002. Aside from his creative work in 2000-2001 he was teaching directing and film in the Association for Disabled Children in Tbilisi. LUKE MAYES - Board of Directors  Luke is a New York based writer / director. After flying jets in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and graduating from Auckland University, Luke embarked on a career in fashion writing and textile design to fund his film habit. His writing has been published in Cigar Aficionado, Style, Playboy, and GQ. Luke has written, directed, and produced numerous short films including "Family Tree" starring Rena Owen, and "The Men's Room" starring Robbie Magasiva and Rebecca Hobbs. Luke's feature script, "Big Time Love" was produced and released in Australasia in 2004. Luke is currently working on a feature length docudrama, "Urban Survival." Having lectured at South Seas Film School, Luke brings a wealth of film knowledge and experience to the Red Shift Film Festival. MIKHAIL SHRAGA - Assistant Executive Festival Director Mikhail was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and has been a resident of Brooklyn, New York, since the age of nine. He is currently an animation student at SVA, and has been a part of the RSFest team since 2003.   REGIONAL CURATORS ANDREA ABELOVA - Europe   PROGAM CURATORS SIGNE BAUMANE - Animation Program (March 2nd @ 9PM) Signe Baumane was born in Latvia and lived there until she was 18. She then obtained a BA in philosophy in Moscow. In 1989, Baumane started to work in Riga's Animated Film Studio as a cell painter and part-time animator. From 1991 to 1993, she received three grants and produced her first three animated films. In September 1995, Baumane left for New York with three of her Latvian films tucked behind the belt, looking for independence. As soon as she arrived, she got the best possible teacher of Animated Independence, Bill Plympton, in whose studio she started to work in January 1996. Baumane worked on his three features and countless shorts and learned a lot about how independent animation studio works. She also learned how to make animated films independently from government grants--fast and cheap. With lessons learned, Baumane started producing films on her own and regularly travels to festivals with her films. Her interest in promoting her own and other independent animators work extends into collaboration with festival programmers. She is a programing adviser for New York Exposition of Short Film and Video, Florida Film Festival, Red Bank International Film Festival, and Woodstock Film Festival. She has initiated and curated numbers of independent animation programs and is in the organizing core of Square Footage Films, a New York group of independent animators that self-publishes and self-distributes DVDs of their work. Baumane has been invited to be a judge in Red Shift Film Festival in New York 2004, Florida Film Festival 2004, Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2004, and Ottawa International Film Festival 2004. Baumane is a 2005 fellow in Film from the New York Foundation for the Arts.   ALINA BLIUMIS - Play With Us (March 1st @10PM Alina Bliumis was born in Minsk, in the former Soviet Union. Since 1993 she has lived and worked in New York City, where she graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in computer art. After graduation, Alina was credited for her post-production work on Radioman (Gold Prize for Animation at Priz Leonardo, Italy, and final selection Animar Animation Festival, Spain). Her animation credits include MTV's animated series Headtrip and TNT's documentary Faces of Evil. Alina has also directed a number of animated shorts, including Recipe for Melody MTV's Mpeg_us, and Shume.In addition, Alina Bliumis is one of the organizers of the Red Shift Festival,the first festival focusing on Russian filmmakers living in the West.   ALEXANDRA LERMAN - Don't Feel at Home (March 1st @ 8PM) Alexandra Lerman was born in Russia in the midst of the Cold War in the year Olympic Games were taking place in Moscow. She moved to New York right after the collapse of Soviet Union to study at the Cooper Union School of Art. Her graduation from the art school was marked by a collaborative project FrenchMusicandWashingExtra produced with Douglas Boatwright and Katherine Oechtering. Documentation of the show was later exhibited as part of a group show When Artists Say We at Artsits Space in SoHo, New York. A reaction to the institution of art education, the art world and the contemporary political climate, this project was aimed to further develop the ideas proposed by Relational Aesthetics. Today Alexandra is a video artist, VJ and an independent curator. She is involved with multiple collaborative endeavours with artists, dancers, and musicians as part of the Ambitious Outsiders collective, which she co-founded in 2005. In December 2005 in Moscow, Russia she curated [t]here.new york - a show of contemporary New York artists, which explored the question whether "high" art today can exist separately from street culture. The show included Swoon, Bec Stupak, Dash Snow, Sanford Biggers, Katya Bochavar and Derick Melander. In 2006 she presented a video installation "Her Family and Other Animals" at the Janos Gat Gallery, and her collaboration with dancer Sandrine Harris was presented at the Rabbit Hole Gallery in Dumboduring the Dumbo Arts Festival. For the 5th RedShift Festival, Alexandra curated the program "Don't Feel at Home." It presents two films by artist collectives on the subject of protest.     STAFF ANDREA ABELOVA -  Regional Curator (Europe) Moved to  New York from Bratislava, Slovakia in June 2005. Leaving the country in her 30s she has decided to leave also 8 years IBM corporate carrier for  unstructured world of people in the field of culture. Beside completing  the master degrees in aesthetics in Slovakia, she also gains experiences as an intern  at Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York and supporting the Red Shift Fest crew. ANTON TROFYMOV - Regional Curator (Eastern Europe) Anton was born in Kiev, Ukraine. He studied film at The Kiev State University of the Performing Arts, directed numerous music videos, and the acclaimed short film "Angelus". In the late '90s, Anton relocated to New York, where he works as a freelance photographer and continues to produce/direct various independent projects. MARAT SHPOLYANSKY - RSF California Branch A soon-to-be doctor turned film director, Marat Shpolyanskiy stunned his entire family when he decided to give up his career in medicine and pursue a career in the film industry. After graduating from California State University Northridge in 1999 with degree in Biology and Child Development, Marat embarked on the journey of his dreams. He worked various positions on several feature and short films and was accepted to Loyola Marymount University, where he completed the MFA program in 2003. GOD BLESS AMERIKA began as the thesis project for his MFA degree, but turned into the sort of learning experience that only real life can bring. MARINA RUBIN - Press Manager Marina Rubin is a journalist, an essayist and a poet. Her poetry had appeared in numerous literary magazines and she is the author of two poetry collections, Ode to Hotels and Once. She is a columnist for www.ycrop.com reviewing concerts, films and other venues in Russian New York. She is also a creative advisor and promoter for the Siberian-swing-salsa band Yoke. ISAAC MATHES - Editorial Manager Isaac Mathes makes films and videos that blur the lines between documentary and fiction that connect remote or disparate communities. A graduate of University of Texas with an MFA in Film Production, Issac had filmed his student projects in Moscow and St. Petersburg. His filmography includes award-winning works "Moscow Diary”, "The Navel”. He is a recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Fulbright Grant to teach DV Production and Alternative Aesthetics courses at The All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and the Institute for the Problems of Contemporary Art in Moscow. He had also taught 16mm, Beta and DV Production, Screenwriting, Media Writing, History of Cinema and Film Aesthetics courses at U.T., Pratt and NJ City University. DMITRIY ROZIN - Technical Director Dmitriy has been working with film and video in New York for ten years. As much as he is involved in the field professionally, a lot of his time he dedicates to non-for-profit work, keeping himself extremely busy. Dmitriy was involved with Red Shift Festival since the beginning, but became a staff member last year, responsible for allkinds of video projection and editing needs the event called for at home and outside of New York. All the TV commercials produced for the festival came through his hands and now are also talking with his voice. Besides that, every year he finds time and energy to come up with a film, either his personal or collaborative piece. We call him Dima "Kino", because that's what he is, "cinema".   BOARD OF ADVISORS Mila Andre Anne Borin Alik Chaldranyan Boris Frumin Louis Menashe Bill Plympton   FOUNDERS Yuriy Gavrilenko Alina Blumis Katya Bochavar   HEARTFELT THANKS Mila Andre, Oleg Abdrashitov, Anthology Film Archives, Slava Borisov, Daniell Bessmert, Alina and Jeff Bliumis, Karma Gardner, Stepan Temir-Bulat, Olga Chemokhud, Marina Dlugy, DVDojo, Alec Chaldranian, Juliana Beliltseva, Stan Brooks, Igor Fert, Yevgeniy Fiks, Janosh Gat, Anton Ginzburg, Olga Gutman, Gromco Inc, Lara Hughley, Anna & Leonid Frants, Gennady Katsov, Alex Meillier, Irina Margolina, Ilya Merenzon, Marie Nesthus, Red Bull, Alla Reshetnikova, Andra Ursuta-Rozin, Alexandr Rubchenko, Radik Shwarts, Elena Sorokina, Viktor Smolniy, Vasily Strela, Oleg Sulkin, Charles Thompson and Nadia Vnukova, Galina Kolomiyets, Inga Koroleva, Alik Chaldranyan, Linda Keil, Vika 7, Olga Zakharova, NTVAmerica, David Gross, Anonymous Donor, Metro Magazine, Nataliya Elina, Pasha, Signe Baumane, Anna Marinova, Millie Taylor, Juliette Brody