Meet our new fellows Justin B. Rathke (artist), Leo Khasin (director and screenwriter) and Bernadette Conrad (author)

Justin B. Rathke aka Justin Time is a multimedia artist, filmmaker, and curator. After training to be as a stonemason, he took to the road for 3 years and travelled all over Europe. Subsequently he studied Fine Arts / Sculpture at the Art School Berlin Weißensee and Urban Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. He graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts in 2010. Since 2011, Justin is a member of Filmarche, Berlin, the first European autonomous film school. Rathke's work has been exhibited all over Germany, in Poland, the U.K., France and in the U.S.
For his fellowship at Villa Aurora, he is planning to realize the experimental documentary CHASING HOUSES. The film will analyze the social and economic constraints of a "migration with house" in the postcapitalistic U.S. of 2013. It takes into account the years of financial and real-estate crises, mobility under the pressure of economic adjustment, the reconstruction of the American Dream and the fascination of the Road Movie.

For more information, please follow the link: Justin Time Productions

Born in Moscow in 1973 Leo Khasin came to Germany as an 8-year-old and has been living in Berlin since 1984.
His professional life didn't start with filmmaking, as he went to medical school to become a dentist. At some point however, he followed his calling and joined a theater ensemble for two years. After that, he studied directing. His short film Liebe Mutter (Dear Mother) was shown at many national and international festivals.
In 2006 and 2007 he studied screen writing in Hamburg, where he wrote the screenplay for his first feature Kaddisch für einen Freund (Kaddish for a Friend). The award-winning film, that Khasin also directed, was shown at many international festivals. In 2012, it won the MFG-Star part of which is a three-month fellowship at Villa Aurora. During his stay in Los Angeles he is working on his newest script.

Born in 1963, Bernadette Conrad studied German Philology, Romance Languages and Social Pedagogy, and pursued a career as a social worker with a focus on addiction therapy. Today, she is a freelance writer and journalist, whose publications are regularly featured in DIE ZEIT and Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Bernadette Conrad is the recipient of various grants and awards such as the 2010 Walliser Medienpreis and the 2012 Literary Fellowship of the State of Baden-Wurttemberg. Her publications include Nomaden im Herzen (Nomads at Heart, 2006), a collection of literary reports, and the biography Die vielen Leben der Paula Fox (The Many Lives of Paula Fox), published in 2011 to rave reviews.
During her residency at Villa Aurora, Conrad will do extensive research for her new book, a work of fiction examining the topic of a nomadic existence.

At the reception Bernadette Conrad will read parts of The Many Lives of Paula Fox and will talk about how stories evolve while working on them.

RSVP required: Please call 310.573-3603 or write an email to infola@villa-aurora.org

Admission: free

Location: 520 Paseo Miramar, Los Angeles, CA 90272

Street parking is available on Los Liones Drive. Shuttle service begins at 7 pm and will start from Los Liones Drive, off Sunset Boulevard two blocks North-East of Pacific Coast Highway.

Please do not park on the Topanga State Park Lot!