NEW DAY FILMS BY
Karina Epperlein:

Voices From Inside

Producer's Web Site:
www.karinafilms.us

Karina Epperlein (independent filmmaker) has thirty years of experience as a theater artist, teacher and filmmaker. A native of Germany, she came to the United States in 1981 as a dancer, choreographer and actress with the avant-garde theater company SOON 3. She developed her own poetic vision of theater directing and performing several original pieces here and abroad. Haunted by her country's past, she created the one-woman show i.e. Deutschland (1988-93), dealing with the aftermath of the Holocaust. Karina kept rewriting the piece with history (the fall of the Wall, reunification etc.), and through the years it was widely performed at theaters and universities.

She also produced, directed, and performed in the video Labyrinthian (1984), based on a poem by Greek poet Nanos Valaoritis, which was shown in festivals here and abroad, as well as the short video version of i.e. Deutschland (1988).

In 1996 Karina completed Voices from inside, a documentary on women in prison and their children on the outside. It was the culmination of her four years of teaching as a volunteer at a federal women's prison. Voices won the PASS Media Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and showed widely at film festivals, universities, television, conferences and community events throughout the United States. Karina traveled extensively with the film, leading discussions and running workshops.

In 1992 and 1996 Karina taught creative expression classes for youth, adults and mothers in drug rehab facilities in East Palo Alto and Oakland. For three years (1997-99) she worked as co-curator, co-organizer, and hostess at the KPFA Crafts Fair Documentary Festival in San Francisco. She also directed Women's Rites (2000) a video featuring five women from Europe and the U.S. studying Expressive Arts Therapy with Anna Halprin. This piece marked the beginning of her working as a cinematographer on her own and other people's projects.

Karinas film I Will Not Be Sad In This World (2001) came out of four years of intimate friendship with a 94-year-old Armenian woman who survived the genocide of her people in 1915. This portrait - as most of her other works  uses fairytale, poetry, and painting to invoke feelings. It has shown in numerous festivals, and is used in youth education and at universities.

She co-produced (with John Knoop), and directed We Are Here Together (2003), a film about the tempestuous first year of an alternative charter high school in Alameda, California, and the young peoples growth. Her new film Phoenix Dance (2006) recounts Homer Avilas return to the stage as a one-legged dancer in a pas de deux by Alonzo King. Voices, I Will Not Be Sad and Phoenix Dance are sponsored projects of the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco. Her production company Karina films grew out of Transit 2100 whose artistic director Karina has been since 1986.

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