Nina Kojima
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Nina Kojima (née: Simonic, born 16 March 1974, Ljubljana; height 5'10'' / 178cm) is a British-Slovenian film director, writer, producer, actress, TV & radio journalist / broadcaster with over 27 years of experience.
She was born and grew up in central Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she attended Majda Vrhovnik Primary School and Gimnazija Ledina Secondary School. She studied Philosophy and Sociology of Culture at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana where she completed her two MAs. She later additionally obtained a MA in Film Directing from MET Film School / Ealing Studios London, and in 2017 became a Ph.D candidate in Philosophy at University of Glasgow, on the subject of Ethics in Space Exploration (Ph.D thesis pending as at 2023). Nina is a space enthusiast and regularly contributes academic articles to Space Flight magazine, and is a member of Mars Society and British Interplanetary Society.
Since 2003 she lives in Marylebone, London.
Back in Slovenia Nina entered the industry as a child actor, and after a brief modelling career she started working at The National Radio Television Slovenia, first as a journalist and later as a host. By her early 20's she was already a weekly morning show host on Val 202, the most listened-to radio station in the country.
In 2000, with the help of her fellow media reporters and several well-known public figures providing official statements, Nina caused a minor national unrest when she dramatically claimed live on-air that the Slovenian government was purchasing the Russian space station Mir with taxpayers' money, for purposes ranging from border surveillance and filming the first zero-gravity adult film. Whilst most of her audience appreciated this April Fool's joke, a small minority went on to protest in front of the parliament. The police dropped all charges against her on the same day, as the Home Office Minister himself was in on the joke by officially announcing that his ministry had jointly funded the purchase with the Slovene Film Forum.
Nina was also a Slovenian host of the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as the Creator and Editor in Chief of the successful weekly TV show Student Street, which ran on the national television for many years. As a journalist she interviewed many Prime Ministers and Presidents, including a live broadcast with Bill Clinton during his visit to Slovenia in 1999. From 2009 to 2018 she was the sole official correspondent in the UK and Ireland for The National Radio Television Slovenia covering politics, current affairs and finance, regularly broadcasting live from No. 10 Downing Street. After a brief pause to further her academic career, she has resumed her post in April 2023.
In 2012 Nina established a media production company in the UK, Partisan Media Limited, to produce short and feature-length documentaries, as well as feature films. Partisan Media's most recent feature-length documentary "Brexit Through the Non-political Glass" has won many awards in the international film festival circuit, including the prestigious Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival (an Oscar-qualifying festival), as well as the Toronto Independent Film Festival of Cift (the second largest Canadian festival hosted at the same venue of their main festival, tiff), where Nina was awarded the Best Female Film Director. It also won the Grand Prize at the Golden State Film Festival 2022 for the US premiere, where the film was screened at the iconic Grauman's TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Brexit Through the Noin-political Glass is currently streaming on Amazon Prime (US & UK), as well as Tubi (20th Century Fox) and Xumo (Comcast / NBC Universal), and it has been particularly sought after on Kanopy platform, where the film has become a popular teaching material at various US, UK and European universities.
Nina's work has always been uniquely based on her journalistic insights reporting on key social agendas of today, formal training in film directing, and her acute observation as a philosopher of human nature.
Nina's latest feature documentary project "Nina Goes to Mars" is currently in production.
She was born and grew up in central Ljubljana, Slovenia, where she attended Majda Vrhovnik Primary School and Gimnazija Ledina Secondary School. She studied Philosophy and Sociology of Culture at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana where she completed her two MAs. She later additionally obtained a MA in Film Directing from MET Film School / Ealing Studios London, and in 2017 became a Ph.D candidate in Philosophy at University of Glasgow, on the subject of Ethics in Space Exploration (Ph.D thesis pending as at 2023). Nina is a space enthusiast and regularly contributes academic articles to Space Flight magazine, and is a member of Mars Society and British Interplanetary Society.
Since 2003 she lives in Marylebone, London.
Back in Slovenia Nina entered the industry as a child actor, and after a brief modelling career she started working at The National Radio Television Slovenia, first as a journalist and later as a host. By her early 20's she was already a weekly morning show host on Val 202, the most listened-to radio station in the country.
In 2000, with the help of her fellow media reporters and several well-known public figures providing official statements, Nina caused a minor national unrest when she dramatically claimed live on-air that the Slovenian government was purchasing the Russian space station Mir with taxpayers' money, for purposes ranging from border surveillance and filming the first zero-gravity adult film. Whilst most of her audience appreciated this April Fool's joke, a small minority went on to protest in front of the parliament. The police dropped all charges against her on the same day, as the Home Office Minister himself was in on the joke by officially announcing that his ministry had jointly funded the purchase with the Slovene Film Forum.
Nina was also a Slovenian host of the Eurovision Song Contest, as well as the Creator and Editor in Chief of the successful weekly TV show Student Street, which ran on the national television for many years. As a journalist she interviewed many Prime Ministers and Presidents, including a live broadcast with Bill Clinton during his visit to Slovenia in 1999. From 2009 to 2018 she was the sole official correspondent in the UK and Ireland for The National Radio Television Slovenia covering politics, current affairs and finance, regularly broadcasting live from No. 10 Downing Street. After a brief pause to further her academic career, she has resumed her post in April 2023.
In 2012 Nina established a media production company in the UK, Partisan Media Limited, to produce short and feature-length documentaries, as well as feature films. Partisan Media's most recent feature-length documentary "Brexit Through the Non-political Glass" has won many awards in the international film festival circuit, including the prestigious Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival (an Oscar-qualifying festival), as well as the Toronto Independent Film Festival of Cift (the second largest Canadian festival hosted at the same venue of their main festival, tiff), where Nina was awarded the Best Female Film Director. It also won the Grand Prize at the Golden State Film Festival 2022 for the US premiere, where the film was screened at the iconic Grauman's TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Brexit Through the Noin-political Glass is currently streaming on Amazon Prime (US & UK), as well as Tubi (20th Century Fox) and Xumo (Comcast / NBC Universal), and it has been particularly sought after on Kanopy platform, where the film has become a popular teaching material at various US, UK and European universities.
Nina's work has always been uniquely based on her journalistic insights reporting on key social agendas of today, formal training in film directing, and her acute observation as a philosopher of human nature.
Nina's latest feature documentary project "Nina Goes to Mars" is currently in production.