She was born in Moscow, former USSR, now Russia, in 1968. In 1985, when she was seventeen, she traveled to her birthplace in Russia to complete her academic and artistic training in Moscow. She graduated from the conservatory Castella with a specialization in theater and a Master’s degree in Arts from the State Institute of Films in Moscow in 1991, where she specialized in film and theatre acting techniques.
When she finished her studies, she returned to Costa Rica, where she lives nowadays. Her full time creative activity has enabled her to explore several artistic and literary expressions such as painting, literature, films, theatre and newspaper interviews (for which she has become well-known in the Central American environment). In 1999 she wrote, produced and directed the short film Florencia de los ríos hondos y los tiburones grandes, which won the prize for Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography at the Costa Rican Film and Video Showcase (Muestra de Cine y Video Costarricense), as well as other awards at international festivals.
Other films by Ishtar Yasin are the documentaries: Te recuerdo como eras (2004), and La mesa feliz (2005) dedicated to poet Pablo Neruda.
Her first feature film, El camino, was a prizewinner in the section Cine en Construcción (Work in Progress) at the International Film Festival of Guadalajara (2007). This film presents the situation of thousands of people who are forced to migrate from Nicaragua to Costa Rica and the consequences for their families. It narrates the story of Saslay and her little brother Darío who are looking for their lost mother, the film also won the FIPRESCI prize and a special mention of the jury in the section of the Iberian-American narrative feature films at the Guadalajara International Film Festival (Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara), Mexico, in 2008.
References in the multimedia
El camino, 2007, Direction