THE INTERVIEW follows a young female immigrant who battles interviewers and her own self-doubt as she searches for a job after receiving her work authorization card.
THE INTERVIEW follows Maria, an immigrant trying to find a job after receiving her work authorization card. It opens with her working for cash as a cleaning lady but soon after receives her work authorization. We follow her as she goes through numerous interviews, and is turned away time and time again. On one such occasion, she learns it’s because of her accent. Through a chance encounter, she obtains a mysterious device which alters her voice to sound like a native English speaker. She uses it at her next interview but to no avail. Devastated and lost, she throws the device away and decides she isn’t going to compromise who she is to try and win a job. With a new confidence about herself, she attends another interview. The story ends with her cleaning again and waiting to hear back from her last interview. She isn’t getting her hopes up but has a positive outlook on the future.
Ksenia is a Russian-born award-winning film director, screenwriter, and producer based in Chicago. She earned her MFA degree in Cinema Directing from Columbia College Chicago. Ksenia is a member of BAFTA Connect and NYWIFT. Her films have been screened at a multitude of film festivals around the globe. Ksenia is a recipient of the Albert P. Weisman Award, Carole Fielding Student Grant, The Arch Bruce Brown Foundation Grant and The Lya Dym Rosenblum Professional Development Award. Her thesis film Jack and Anna has screened at 40+ festivals including the American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival. It won the Best Global Short: Beyond the Rainbow Award at the 2019 SCAD Savannah Film Festival and has been nationally recognized at the 42nd Telly Awards, garnering Silver and Bronze Awards. Ksenia was also nominated for the Young Director Award, Cannes Lions. Her portfolio includes credits on numerous well-known productions in various roles. In 2020, she co-directed a feature-length screen adaptation of One Woman Hamlet, a play dedicated to mental health awareness, which premiered at the 2022 NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival. She is currently developing a few projects, including a pilot, two shorts, and a feature. Her short screenplay, The Blouse, won the Grand Prize at the Academy Award-Qualifying Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) Screenplay Competition 2022. She is an alumni of the AICP Mentoring Program Cycle 2 (Mentor - Jennifer Sprunger, E.P. at Ridley Scott Associates), and she was a semi-finalist at the 2023 CDDP-Commercial Directors Diversity Program. In 2024, she was nominated for the Princess Grace Awards by NYWIFT and for the Tribeca Through Her Lens program by Film Fatales.
Outstanding Screenplays Shorts Competition 2023 - Semifinalist
Screenwriters Network 2023 - SWN Short Film Screenplay Competition Finalist
PANO Microgrant 2024 - Semifinalist
Roy W. Dean Short Film Grant 2023 - Nominee
Co-Writer - Brian Naughton
Producer - Dashawna Wright
Director of Photography - Gabriel Jung
