Dmitry Trakovsky

Dmitry Trakovsky, born February 1985 in Moscow, grew up in suburban Los Angeles after his family immigrated to the United States in 1987. His parents encouraged him to explore a wide variety of interests across the arts, humanities and sciences. In high school, he spent a year in Heidelberg, Germany, where he studied German and classical music.

While pursuing a Biology degree at the University of California Santa Cruz, he made his first film for a course on a Buddhist text, the Lotus Sutra. This short compelled his professor to encourage him to pursue filmmaking and eventually led to this debut film, a documentary about Andrei Tarkovsky. Gradually, Dmitry began to study the nature of images, and became increasingly interested in the spiritual possibilities of expression that the language of film offered. During junior year of college, Dmitry studied abroad in Padua, Italy, where he continued to work on this film. Recently, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in the History of Art and Visual Culture, and founded a small production company, Trakovsky Film LLC.