Nataliya Eduardovna Golofastova

I was born and raised in Odessa (1971), in the former Soviet Union, now Ukraine. Growing up on the set of Odessa Film Studio, I began acting in Soviet films as a child. From that point on, I was captivated by a passion for film and theatre. I performed at the Propaganda Theatre of the Young Communists and took mime classes at the Marcel Marceau school. The winds of Perestroika made me realize there was more to the world than socialist realism—the only officially accepted artistic form of the time. In 1991, I had the opportunity to study in the Netherlands. However, six months after my departure, my motherland collapsed. The Netherlands became my new fatherland. Initially, I intended to study directing, but experiment in the arts was foreign to me, as I knew nothing but socialist realism. To understand modern Western art, I pursued a university education. Theatre studies, philosophy, and psychology became my fields of interest. My academic focus turned to transgressive art forms and the perceptual field of spectators—specifically, how art can evoke specific experiences. I also resumed acting, appearing in television series and stage productions, publishing in academic journals, and lecturing at art schools and universities. The 1990s were a fruitful time for large-scale experimentation in the arts. Various art forms merged into a new multimedia format, fuelling my development as an artist. In 2006, I created my first multimedia production, "The Letter." In 2008, I became a resident director at Theatre Rotterdam. Through collaborations with theatre groups, filmmakers, and independent artists, I evolved into a multimedia creator with a unique style. Several of my productions were hailed by the Dutch national press as among the best of the year. Alongside full-length theatre plays, my art performances have been presented in art galleries, festivals, happenings, and museums. In my multimedia work, I often use documentary material, which I dramatize and shape in a strong, sensorial, and associative manner. This out-of-the-box perspective has proven to be both powerful and surprising to audiences and critics alike. I applied this knowledge to create impactful stories in my debut film, Otets.