Katya Chelli
Independent Filmmaker
Areas of Focus: Documentaries
Organization: Red Dust Productions
Website: https://amosozthefilm.com/
Biography
Born in London, England, Katya Chelli dedicated herself from a very young age to becoming a classical dancer and trained at the Royal Ballet School. However, at the point of turning professional, her dream was shattered due to a back problem. She then studied languages (French, Russian, German, Spanish) and worked as a secretary, first in London (The Economist and The Royal Court Theatre) and then in the United States (United Nations and Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT).
It was at MIT that Katya turned to film editing, which, as one knows, requires a good sense of rhythm. She took courses in “Cinéma Vérité” at the film school run by the renowned Richard Leacock and then worked as an assistant editor on both fiction and documentary films.
In 1985, she moved to France and worked as assistant/dialogue editor on feature films directed by, among others, Robert Altman, Costa-Gavras, Axel Corti and Nikita Mikhalkov before becoming a full editor of feature films. She eventually returned to her first love, documentaries, and edited many, often putting to use her knowledge of foreign languages.
Katya made her début as a documentary director in 2019 with her film HEALING HEARTS, which tells the story of Israeli and Palestinian doctors working together to save the lives of Palestinian children born with severe heart malformations. It was shown on both Planète+ in France and on BBC Arabia.
Sadly enough, due to the current situation in the Middle East, she needs to protect certain participants in her film and, therefore, cannot put out a link to her film for the time being.
She is currently learning Hebrew in memory of Amos Oz, while working on her film project about him.
