Film Student Helēna Šania Volbeta has been awarded the 2023-2024 Jānis Grundmanis Graduate and Postgraduate Fellowship for Study in the US for the upcoming year. Provided by the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS) and awarded to only one person per year, this fellowship, in the amount of 20,000 dollars, will enable her to continue her studies.
"The AABS Grundmanis Postgraduate Fellowship has significantly aided outstanding academics, creatives and experts in arts, humanities and social sciences who have been a source of inspiration for my professional and academic works,” Šania Volbeta said. “It's an honor to be chosen as the recipient of the grant this year.”
With the backing of the AABS Janis Grundmanis Fellowship, Šania Volbeta is set to continue working on her current film projects, including her short film, a satire focused on the complexities of artificial fertility.
Helēna Šania Volbeta holds a BSc Management Honors degree from the University of Warwick, UK, and is currently a candidate in the MFA Film program in Creative Producing at Columbia University. Through this intense hands-on three-year film program, Volbeta is developing diverse filmmaking skills and projects in NYC. In her own creative works, Volbeta aims to relay Latvia’s rich culture and identity to the world by reflecting on complex historic events and cultural shifts that impact today’s world. Being a producer, her global outlook and industry relationships will help to ensure international co-productions and enable more ground-breaking projects from Latvian artists to flourish and reach wider audiences.
