An ambitious young tennis player battles her way through her first Australian Open match, but it is her father’s expectations that are the toughest obstacle to overcome.
WILD CARD is a 15-minute sports drama centered on a complicated father-daughter relationship. While Maya battles her first opponent on court, Viktor—her father—fights his way into her match, and into her head, for better and for worse. Blending grounded sports drama with touches of magical realism, Maya’s inner world occasionally comes to life around her on the court.
Ellen Rodnianski is a filmmaker based in New York City.
She was born in Germany into a Russian-speaking Ukrainian family. When she was eight, she moved to Moscow, Russia. She attended English-speaking international schools in both Germany and Russia, and this formed her global perspective.
Ellen always loved stories. Both real and fictional. She received her BA in History from The University of Chicago, and followed up this extremely academic degree with an MFA from the USC Peter Stark Producing Program. Her debut narrative feature, AMERICAN BABY, is currently on the film festival circuit. It had its US premiere at the Austin Film Festival where it also won the Audience award. Her short films have premiered at international festivals including the Warsaw Film Festival and Cottbus Film Festival, and are featured on prestigious online platforms such as Director’s Notes and Omeleto.
Ellen has directed in Russian winters and Texas summers, so temperature…not really a concern anymore. But before she was out there calling shots in extreme weather conditions, Ellen worked behind the scenes: as assistant to Brit Marling on Season 2 of Netflix’s The OA, and as Director’s Assistant to Kantemir Balagov on the HBO pilot of The Last of Us. She is also an associate producer of Balagov’s acclaimed film Beanpole and Kira Kovalenko’s Unclenching the Fists. Both films were awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and are distributed by MUBI.
She speaks English, Russian, German and French (in descending order of frequency).
