Behind Closed Doors

4-7-16
Nadia Voukitchevitch’s Biography (www.nadiafilms.com)

Nadia was born in New York City, where she earned her BA at Sarah Lawrence College where she took many filmmaking classes with Experimental Filmmaker, Abigail Child. She told her father she wanted to be a Director at the age of 10 while living in Spain, and he replied: “That’s a shame I have no contacts in the film business and I’m not Jewish.” She’s lived in Los Angeles for almost 17 years which is also where she directed her first short: “Behind Closed Doors.” Having lived in many corners of the world, including Spain for a decade, Haiti and Russia, Nadia feels at home anywhere her family, friends and colleagues are. She traveled a lot during childhood due to her family’s bohemian life-style, writer- father is from Montenegro and her concert pianist, painter-artist- mother, The Philippines. One thing her mother taught her that she’s always lives by is that if you want to get anywhere as a woman of color you have to work ten times harder and at least prove yourself twenty times better than anyone else.
Her work has taken her 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 such as French, Catalán, Valenciano, Creole, Russian, and is fluent in Spanish.
While in High School Nadia was chosen to be part of the Future Filmmaker’s Workshop at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU and then invited a year later to participate in the Future Screen Writer’s Workshop led by Christine Choi at 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. When living in Spain she did lots of acting in Theater 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 and she’d use the money to invest in more 35mm camera equipment. Till this day her mother still tells her off for turning down Sesame Street when she was 4yrs old at Bethlehem Day Nursery School in New York…lol

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 a couple of 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 and that 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 her first short film “Behind Closed Doors” and her third documentary speaking out against the development of the Figueroa Corridor and how it drove thousands of immigrants and low-income families out of a neighborhood being gentrified as well as children under the age of 5 living with lead-poisoning in a hot-zone. She directed, produced and wrote these as well as several PSAs pro bono for non-profits Esperanza Community Housing Corp and CHIRLA, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights who awarded her a certificate of recognition, and collaborated with Salma Hayek on a Vote Pro-Immigrant Reform campaign.

After having her son in 2008 (to commemorate the first US African American President,) she started representing several well-known production companies, editorial, visual effects, motion graphics and animation houses as well as music composers, and feature film directors like Jaume Collat-Serra, this allowed her to be closer to home. She grew exponentially the business development for all the companies she worked for bringing in new solid and stable accounts not just in their local markets but also on a global scale. The Owners/Clients were all very pleased with how their companies were strategically taken to the next level in terms of better quality creative and larger budgets given the kinds of accounts that Nadia was bringing in on a long-term basis with loads of repeat business. With a sharp eye for good talent and an incredible knack for finding exceptional talent and growing businesses to the maximum potential, Nadia is very passionate about seeing the people she works with succeed and watching their companies grow and win awards. Some of the companies Nadia repped were: Lost Planet Editorial, Thornberg & Forester, Reino Animation, Ool Digital Media, Get- Kinectic, The Film House Group, Harpoon Pictures, Onda Films, La Banda Films, Whiskey Films, Shooters Films, Muuseme Music, Uptempo, and Liquid Lab amongst others.

In 2013 Nadia was asked to produce a short comedy film, “Ending Up” starring Jenica Bergere and Matt Letscher that has been doing very well in the festivals circuit.
She recently finished producing a PSA for the Salesian Boys & Girls Club and was able to get Michael Peña to do the voiceover pro-bono as well as get the song rights to “You Are my Sunshine” for the music.

She is in development for a couple of feature film projects and documentaries, and continues to produce TV commercials, she recently finished a PSA for the Salesian Boys & Girls Club of East Los Angeles with Michael Peña. She is passionate about serving non-profit organizations to help bring more awareness to the good work that they do for their communities and to help raise funds so that they can continue to grow and promote their organizations on a global scale.
Nadia was just accepted into the Masters Program in Education at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena and has completed 24 Units in Early Childhood Education at East Los Angeles College where she is on the Dean’s Honor List, this is not only a second career for her, but also the beginning of a new era of advocacy by joining the StudentsFirst.org movement as she’s witnessed how her own 7 year old son has struggled in a broken US Public School system such as LAUSD. Nadia has always considered herself an Advocate of Human Rights with a particular focus on women and children of color as well as students with special needs and behavioral disorders.
She enjoys spending time with her son, Charles watching movies and her dog, Estrella, and loves to travel the world. She’s always up for a good tennis match, a quick spin in a Cessna-as the Pilot, Hot Yoga, and is back into pilates and spinning. Nadia will be volunteering at the Junior Blind Olympics next month, the last 5k she ran despite having two heel spurs was 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.