Irina Vodar is an award-winning indie filmmaker, storyteller, and graphic designer with over 20 years experience in film and broadcast design with ABC News. She has received numerous accolades, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Daytime Emmy nomination, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award and over 100 awards and nominations from the Indie Film Festival community.

Born in Russia, Vodar studied at the Russian National Film School (VGIK) and later at Columbia College, Chicago. She is best known for her two documentary features, Miss Gulag and Anything You Lose. 

Her debut documentary, Miss Gulag (2007), explores a unique beauty pageant held inside a Siberian women's prison. The film, created in partnership with Neihausen‑Yatskova Films, received support from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund and the Ford Foundation. It premiered at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival and went on to screen at 36 festivals worldwide, earning both critical acclaim and scholarly attention. It was acquired by the Department of Slavonic Studies Library at the University of Cambridge.

Her second film, Anything You Lose (2023), is a personal documentary exploring infertility and Assisted Reproductive Technologies. Filmed over seven years, it delves into the psychological and emotional complexities of in‑vitro fertilization (IVF). The project received partial funding from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and was test‑screened at London’s Barbican Centre during the 2019 International Fertility Festival. Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award and more than 100 awards and nominations, the film continues to resonate with audiences worldwide. It is broadcasting and streaming on National PBS for the next three years.

Vodar is a member of Women Make Movies and the New York Women in Film collective. She currently resides in New York City and continues to create thought-provoking films that challenge societal norms and explore the intersection of personal experience and larger cultural issues.