When her Theoretical Physics studies were interrupted by the war in Sarajevo, Jelena Popović fled to Canada, where she graduated from the Film Production program at the Université du Québec à Montréal after directing the live-action short Galapagos, based on a true story of survival, love and pedicure.
Jelena has been with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) since 2000, forging her dramaturgy and technology skills as production manager and associate producer on conventional and hybrid documentary and animated films such as Facing Champlain, Zero Tolerance, No More Tears Sister, They Chose China and Here At Home.Complementing her production work, Jelena worked as an editor on many animated films, including Patrick Doyon’s Academy Award-nominated short Sunday, Claire Blanchet’s stereoscopic 3D short The End of Pinky and several editions of Hothouse, the NFB’s acclaimed mentorship program for emerging animation filmmakers. Jelena also directed The Knights of Orlando, a documentary about war and the games of war.
A producer at the NFB Animation Studio since 2014, her projects span a variety oftechniques and have garnered over 100 awards on the international festival circuit. Hedgehog’s Home, Eva Cvijanović’s exquisite felt stop-motion fable, has received more than 30 honours, including a Special Mention at the Berlinale and the Prix du jeune public at Annecy. The Estonia/Croatia/Canada co-production Manivald, a 2D gender-ambiguous tale by Chintis Lundgren, has won awards at Animafest Zagreb, Hiroshima, NYSFF, OIAF, Aspen, Denver, Manchester and many other festivals. Jelena also produced Terril Calder’s Tribeca award winner Meneath, a darkly beautiful, raw stop-motion film that traces the challenging journey of a precocious Métis baby girl who contemplates her path to Hell, and Frances Adair Mckenzie’s expressionistic VR ode to nature’s struggle for existence, The Orchid and the Bee, winner of the Canadian Screen Award for Immersive Fiction.
Jelena’s recent productions include Bread Will Walk, an explosive single-shot wonder by Alex Boya that blends hand-drawn animation and digital collage, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Directors’ Fortnight. Paradaïz, a quirky anti-war story animated entirely on an iPad, has won two Oscars-qualifying awards, among many others, and was even screened and analyzed at the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna.
Jelena is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
