Yana Gorskaya(I)

Yana Gorskaya is a director, producer, and editor, best known for her work as director and executive producer of the TV series What We Do in the Shadows (2019) and her work in the editorial departments of nearly all of director Taika Waititi's films. At the age of 6, she immigrated to the United States with her mother. She studied at Columbia University for her Bachelor of Arts degree and at the University of Southern California for her Master of Fine Arts degree. She made her feature debut in 2002 with Spellbound (2002), after Kate Amend recommended her to the movie's director Jeffrey Blitz. The movie got Gorskaya instant recognition, winning her the American Cinema Editors Award for Best Edited Documentary, with the movie itself being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. 2007 marked her first collaboration with Taika Waititi, as she worked as an editor on Eagle vs Shark (2007). She went on to work on most of Waititi's subsequent projects, eventually branching out as a director, including many episodes of What We Do in the Shadows, for which she received multiple Emmy nominations. She lives in Los Angeles.