My story
I was born in Russia, during the times of USSR, into a family of engineers. The six of us lived in a tiny flat in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg – my mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, my older sister and I. My grandmother survived during 900 days of hunger in Saint Petersburg during World War II, my mom was also born in this city and I inherited a huge love for it.
When I was 6 I started doing rhythmic gymnastics and that didn’t allow me to have much fun while I was growing up – every day after school I was in the gym for 4 hours. During the weekend we had 2 trainings a day.
For my summer vacations I had 2 options – to go visit my other grandmother in the village called Uglovka, which is between St. Petersburg and Moscow – to work in the garden, feed chickens, milk cows and goats; or go to the sports camp, the hardcore Soviet sport style.
At an early age I was taught self-discipline and learned to pass through any difficulties.
I was a good student at school and later I studied psychology in Saint Petersburg University, where I also learned English. At 16 years old I started my modeling career. At 19, I met and fell in love with my future husband and a father of my children- Sergey. It was a wonderful, very eventful and full of love period of my life – I was growing up and maturing very fast.
It was a wonderful, very eventful and full of love period of my life – I was growing up and maturing very fast. When our younger daughter was 1 year old I went to work at the Grand Hotel Europe in St. Petersburg. I really enjoyed working there and made some friends that I’m are still close with. With the experience and connections I gained at that job I was able to start my own travel company. After 7 years of marriage, Sergey and I realized that we wanted different things in life and were headed in different directions . As the new chapter of my life was about to start, I asked myself a simple, but very important question: what is that I really want? And I discovered an unexpected answer: “I want to go to Hollywood, I want to do movies.” Our daughters were 3 and 5 years old when, after the divorce, I moved with them to Los Angeles. I had to start from scratch.There was so much I needed to learn. I was getting some fundamental knowledge of producing, studied at the acting school of the legendary Hollywood teacher Eric Morris, studying the art of writing movie scripts. I was also working with a dialect couch, trying to get rid of my accent, although it wasn’t very successful.
Once I came across an old movie that touched me really deeply- “An affair to remember” 1957. I realized that nowadays people make a lot action movies about superhero’s, but very few about real people, characters that we all can relate to. “An affair to remember” became an inspiration for me to create my film that is about believing, trying, loving, growing and finding happiness.
The script was written in three months, but then it took me 2,5 years to improve and refine it. When it was finally ready, I began to receive offers to sell it. But I wanted to produce it myself, the way I see it and of course, to play the main character.
Not many people believed that I’d success, and not many people wanted to participate in a project by an unexperienced producer, written by an unknown writer with a no-name actress in the leading role. But after many attempts, the team was gathered, funding was received, and we started production of film in the summer of 2017. My ultimate goal was that those who watch “See You Soon” will feel compelled to slow down for a moment, and find the inspiration to make a difference, to find courage to seek for their true selves, to open their hearts to love, to discover and recognize the very best qualities people have.
I hope that “See You Soon” will motivate people to take that first step towards new life, new opportunities, to believe in themselves and be brave enough to start changing their lives.
The film was released in July 2019. The best reward for me was receiving letters of gratitude from people all over the world, thanking me for inspiration and motivation they got from the movie. And that was exactly what I wanted to achieve!
And I’ll see you soon in the next projects!