Module 1
ALPHABET
For those who start from Zero.
Founder & Artistic Director, MOTIF
MOTIF’s laboratory methodology was developed by filmmaker and actor Yana Gladkikh from more than two decades of training and professional practice across three very different artistic traditions.
Her education began at the Moscow Art Theatre School, rooted in the theatrical tradition of Konstantin Stanislavsky, where she graduated with honors in acting. She went on to spend more than a decade as a leading actress at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, and later returned to the School as a teacher.
She subsequently trained as a film director at Russia’s Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Film Directors, in the directing workshop of Vladimir Khotinenko, Pavel Finn and Vladimir Fenchenko. The Higher Courses occupied a singular place in Soviet and Russian cinema: filmmakers including Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Konchalovsky, Marlen Khutsiev and Sergei Solovyov taught there across its history.
In 2025 Yana earned her MFA in Directing from the AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles — an institution whose filmmaking community has included directors and filmmakers such as David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Patty Jenkins, Darren Aronofsky and Ari Aster.
MOTIF grew out of the differences she encountered between these traditions.
Before coming to the U.S., Yana directed commercial features and television while continuing to work as an actor; in America, her practice expanded further into independent cinema and theatre. Moving between large professional productions and small independent sets reinforced one of the central ideas behind MOTIF: a director needs more than one way of working.
The MOTIF modules bring together the tools Yana found most useful across these worlds: the visual and directorial craft of Eastern European film training; a deep understanding of performance shaped by her background as an actor and by the Stanislavsky and Michael Chekhov traditions, which she has also taught; and the collaborative, production-driven approach to filmmaking she encountered at AFI and in the American industry.
The purpose is not to pass down one “correct” directing method.
It is a laboratory of methods to test.
Yana personally leads the core MOTIF labs, helping each filmmaker expand their cinematic vocabulary, challenge habitual choices, experiment with unfamiliar approaches, and determine which tools best serve the work they actually want to make.
Click on a module to learn more about the curriculum, skills, and outcomes.
ALPHABET introduces the fundamental language of cinema: frame, shot, composition, interior, exterior, nature morte, movement, space, time, basics of montage, and the relationship between them.
Why put the camera here and not there?
Why moving it?
Why cut?
Why stay?
How can same shots rearranged tell multiple completely different stories?
Through practical exercises and analysis, participants begin building a vocabulary of cinematic choices.
The goal is to begin learning how to think as a director.
No previous filmmaking experience required.
Only your phone with camera and curiosity. We will provide you with the rest.
For those who start from Zero.
EXPERIMENT is a laboratory for trying approaches outside your habits.
Participants expand their craft in directing tools like: working with actors, mise-en-scène, rhythm, “fake geography”, camera movement, and alternative approaches to constructing a scene.
The purpose isn’t to replace your existing method.
It is to disturb it.
Try a tool you would normally never use.
Direct a scene according to a different principle.
Remove the tool you rely on most.
Find three cinematic solutions to the same dramatic problem.
You leave with a larger vocabulary — and a clearer understanding of which tools actually belong to you.
For participants with some previous filmmaking, directing, film-school, or equivalent practical experience.
PROJECT is designed for experienced filmmakers who already have something they want to make: a short film, a scene, a proof of concept, or another developed narrative project.
This is not a class built around identical assignments.
The project itself becomes the assignment.
MOTIF provides a rigorous but creatively safe environment in which filmmakers can question their assumptions, test approaches, work with actors, explore visual strategies, experiment with form, and find collaborators for the future production.
Participants develop and shoot their own work while using the group as a creative laboratory: a place for experimentation, feedback, failure, revision and discovery.
There should be no such thing as a MOTIF film.
The objective is for your film to become more unmistakably yours.
For filmmakers with substantial previous experience.
For those who start from Zero.
For participants with some previous filmmaking, directing, film-school, or equivalent practical experience.
For filmmakers with substantial previous experience.