Yana Lekarska is a writer/director from Bulgaria. She holds an MFA in Film Directing from both Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea as well as New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Apart that she has more than 20 years of experience in film and literary translation.
Yana's debut feature film (as writer-director) Because I Love Bad Weather premiered in March 2024 in the International Competition Section of the 28th Sofia International Film Festival and won the Audience Award. After that, the film opened in cinemas in Bulgaria and stayed on the big screen for 17 weeks.
Yana's latest project as an executive producer - the short film A Summer's End Poem (dir. Lam Can-Zhao, China - Malaysia - Switzerland) received the Special Prize for best short film of the Generation International Jury at Berlinale 2024.
Apart that Yana is a programmer for the Dhaka International Film Festival (Bangladesh) and is part of the selection committee and the mentors of the screenplay lab West Meets East, organized by the Dhaka IFF.
She is also an associate producer of the feature film Ma Ma (dir. John La Raw, 2018, Myanmar, South Korea) as well as executive producer of the Bulgarian feature films Ashes Over Sun (dir. Bo Kalinov, 2020, Bulgaria, Sweden) and Axis of Life (dir. Atanas Hristoskov, in postproduction, Bulgaria, Hungary).
Yana is an alumnus from Berlinale Talents 2020, Talents Tokyo 2017, Sarajevo Talents 2018, the Fantastic Film School during the Bucheon Fantastic Film Festival in South Korea as well as the UNESCO Film Production Residency Program organized by the Busan Independent Film Association, again in South Korea, and the workshop FILM+ in Bucharest, Romania.
In 2016 Yana did an internship at Pine House Film, the production company of renowned Korean director Lee Chang-dong, during the script development of Burning (2018, winner of the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes Film Festival).
In the years she has served as a jury to several film festivals (Dhaka IFF; CINEMAPUA Philippines; International Short Film Festival Canton, China; International Kids Festival India).
Yana's 2nd feature film 'Moussaka' is in development stage. It won the Development funding from the Bulgarian National Film Center is again produced by the company Invictus and producer Kalin Kalinov - who are also behind her debut feature Because I Love Bad Weather.