Vanya Rainova is an award-winning writer and producer who is a managing partner at Portokal, a creative lab for filmmaking and photography founded in 2000. She produced PRIDE (30 min., drama), which opened in Locarno Film Festival and went on to win the Grand Prix at the Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival, and a nomination for the European Film Awards, among 20 other recognitions. Vanya also co-authored the THE LAST BLACK SEA PIRATES (creative documentary, 72 mins.), which competed in HotDocs, Vision du Reel and DokLeipzig, among many others. It won the Golden Apricot for Best Documentary, the FIPRECI Awards from the Krakow Film Festival and several other important awards and nominations. Before walking into the world of filmmaking, Vanya published short fiction and feature stories in magazines and anthologies in Europe and the United States. She was managing editor of Bulgaria’s only English-language news publisher, the Sofia Echo, and Director of Marketing and Communications for Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland, California. Vanya has a master’s in creative writing from the University of San Francisco and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ithaca College.
