Biography
Born in the former Soviet Union, Inga Lavolé-Khavkina studied fine arts and medicine, before moving to the United States in 1988. There, in New York, Inga completed her film studies at New York University, where she discovered the power of documentary filmmaking. Her first documentary film « One for Yes, Twice for No» tells the story of the exceptional devotion of a group of friends and dissidents from Moscow, expelled to the United States, towards their old comrade suddenly afflicted with terminal Lou Gehrig disease. The film won the Award for Social Significance at the New York University Film Festival.
After graduation, Inga managed the film studio at the Film and Television Department of NYU. During this time, she also worked for the Shoah Foundation, established by Steven Spielberg, where she conducted a myriad of video interviews of Holocaust survivors. Inga was also one of the founding partners of New Post House Inc., an independent production company. It was there that she honed her art working as producer/director/videographer/editor for a number of well-received documentary films. Some of her credits include:
* « Poco o Poco » on the work of painter, Dena Schutzer, with culturally disadvantaged school children from Yonkers; « Politics of Art, Politics of Cities» - by the eminent Professor of Architecture, Krzysztof Wodiczko from the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT; « All the Vertovs » - about the careers of internationally famous film innovators, the Kaufman brothers - Boris, Mikhail and Dennis (professionally known as Dziga Vertov) ; «The Making of Solaris» which tells the story of the making of Andrey Tarkovski's masterpiece, Solaris.
Always interested in psychology and after being deeply affected by the September 11th tragedy in New York City, Inga enrolled into the IM School of Healing Arts, where for 5 years she studied psychology. Her studies were based on the works of the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, a disciple of Sigmund Freund. The application of his works helps patients to heal from psychological traumas and to believe in their creative potential.
After moving to Paris in 2005, Inga held the post of creative director of a Parisian Art gallery and was invited as a Jury Member for the Latin American Film Festival.
In 2014, Inga became one of the founding members of Poirier Films, a French production company, which produced the documentary film «Half a Square Meter of Freedom» which she directed. It was completed in 2018.
The same year, with her husband Bruno Lavolé, she created the non-profit organization "Art et Prison France." While promoting artistic creation in prison, the goal of this association is to build a bridge between inmates and society, and thus, facilitate reinsertion of the inmates through art and culture.
She is currently developing new film projects at her production company.
