Lana Tankosa Nikolic

WeAnimate 2024-06-04 | wam#0043

Lana worked as an education coordinator at The Animation Workshop before starting her own production and distribution company, Late Love Production, in 2016. She is noted for producing The Hangman at Home/We Are at Home, Egg, and Orgiastic Hyper-Plastic. Lana is also the co-founder and producer of White Hole Theater, and a founding member and Chairperson of Plastic Collective.

Spending her time as an organizer, leader, and facilitator of animation, theater, VR, exhibitions, and events is what drives Lana. She says:

I am good at facilitating the work of others, and it’s very gratifying. When I fall in love with an artist or a project, I want to do whatever I can to make it happen. I will make coffee, if it’s helpful in some way. When I see something in its early stages that speaks to me, and I know it needs a major push of labor before it can become something seen and shared in the world… then I am all in. I am there as a kind of midwife to help push out the babies, and that’s so important to me.

Membership in Plastic Collective, and access to funding designated for arts organizations, has created new opportunities for new types of projects. Lana is focused on short film distribution, because short animation for adults currently lacks substantial distribution methods, and means that a lot of films, once completed, are seldom seen outside of a single festival season. She says:

Distribution is vital in a project’s life-cycle, and it’s incomplete without it. Through the Plastic Collective, I am working on a new project “The Cinematic Bliss” that showcases short animated films in art galleries and museums. In collaboration with Viborg Animation Festival, we are working with a handful of museums where we can curate programs and exhibitions that involve short animated films. We are focused primarily on Danish films, but may curate different programs for the different institutions. This is just a 2-year pilot program: we are trying to test this as a potential distribution method for animated films in Denmark. I am very excited about it. I have been trying to find new distribution methods for years, and it takes time and is frustrating. I am hoping that this will eventually become something that is available to every producer, opening new doors that can be part of their distribution plans, and ultimately help them get funding for their projects.

 In addition to the animated films Late Love currently has in production, the next performance at White Hole Theater, and her work in distribution, Lana also manages and helps organize Plastic Collective events, programs, and initiatives, supporting the procreation of ever more projects.