While New Yorkers braced themselves for an unusually cold winter, writer-director Nastasya Popov was embracing the chill.<\/p>\n
\u201c Winter fashion is cool. I like wearing my vintage fur,\u201d says the L.A.-based Popov, in New York earlier this month for the premiere of her first feature film<\/a> \u201cIdiotka.\u201d<\/p>\n More from WWD<\/strong><\/p>\n The film is getting released almost a year after its world debut at South by Southwest. A few months after its festival premiere, the film was acquired for distribution by Utopia, cofounded by Robert Schwartzman.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had this great showing at South By, the audience was laughing, they loved it,\u201d says Popov. \u201cTo even get distribution in this landscape, I feel really grateful. We always just really wanted to make a movie that was for the masses and was poppy and quick and exciting and fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n Nastasya Popov on set for “Idiotka.”<\/p>\n Inspired by Popov\u2019s own life, the film hinges around Margarita, a young fashion design student living at home with her multigenerational Russian expat family. Margarita gets cast on a design competition show, in the style of \u201cProject Runway\u201d and \u201cMaking the Cut,\u201d<\/a> and is prompted to mine her family\u2019s trauma for screen time.<\/p>\n \u201cI say it\u2019s semi-autobiographical,\u201d says Popov, who moved back home with her own family in order to make her first feature film at the same time that her sister was starting her own fashion label. \u201cMy sister and I were just sort of taking that like leap of faith on ourselves at the same time,\u201d she adds. \u201cI was in this pressure cooker situation under the same roof with my elders, and I thought a lot of good humor came out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n The film is dedicated in memory of Popov\u2019s late grandmother, who inspired one of the film\u2019s memorable characters. \u201cMy grandmother was this gorgeous icon. I really wanted to immortalize her in this movie,\u201d says Popov.<\/p>\n The writer-director looked to reality shows from \u201cThe Hype\u201d to \u201cThe Kardashians\u201d as inspiration.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really interested in exploring themes of putting your personal life on display, and then it just clicked \u2014 oh, of course, fashion designer reality show \u2014 and now we can bring in all these kooky L.A. characters as well,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of so many things. It\u2019s an immigrant story. It\u2019s a fashion movie. It\u2019s a satire about reality TV.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cReality TV is obviously a highly entertaining format,\u201d she continues. \u201cIn these five years that I\u2019ve been working on this movie, it\u2019s become even more natural to all of us. We\u2019re essentially each living in our own reality show as each of us has our personal brand. In cinema you have the option to show the interiority, the other side of it, how we all feel when our phones are off. That vulnerability of, wait, what the hell did I just like say in front of an audience?\u201d<\/p>\n The film stars actress Anna Baryshnikov<\/a> in her first lead feature role. The actress got involved early on in the process, after a mutual friend shared a copy of the script.<\/p>\n \u201cWe actually went to the same college but never knew each other,\u201d says Popov of Baryshnikov. \u201cShe comes from a similar background from me; her dad [Mikhail Baryshnikov] also immigrated from the former Soviet Union, as did my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe could talk for hours about those themes and the culture clash we were exploring. And so she really helped me make this movie much richer, but also funnier,\u201d Popov says. \u201cWhen we shot the sizzle reel with her, her comedic timing was so good that I essentially rewrote the whole script after we shot that. She\u2019s really been along for this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n Nastasya Popov on set for “Idiotka.”<\/p>\n The buzzy supporting cast includes Camila Mendes<\/a>, Benito Skinner<\/a>, Julia Fox and Owen Thiele. \u201cIt feels great that our cast is all on the rise,\u201d says Popov.<\/p>\n Popov grew up in L.A., where the film is based, and went on to major in film and creative nonfiction at Northwestern University.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that often immigrant parents are like, \u2018be a doctor, a lawyer, because we want you to have a real job.\u2019 And so I\u2019m just really lucky that my parents encouraged me to follow my creative instincts. And I think just by growing up around friends whose parents were in the industry, it became clear to me that there is a real career behind the camera.\u201d<\/p>\n With her first feature film out in the world, Popov is looking ahead to her next project. She\u2019s currently writing a romantic comedy, while developing other comedy and TV concepts.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope and plan to keep writing comedies, and hopefully make them bigger and bigger. I think we need to laugh. I think strong female characters, when well written, and funny, can be the best thing ever,\u201d she adds. \u201cWe made an ensemble comedy in L.A. with barely any budget. So I just feel very excited for what\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Nastasya Popov and Anna Baryshnikov<\/p>\n Best of WWD<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for WWD’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While New Yorkers braced themselves for an unusually cold winter, writer-director Nastasya Popov was embracing the chill. \u201c Winter fashion is cool. I like wearing my vintage fur,\u201d says the L.A.-based Popov, in New York earlier this month for the premiere of her first feature film \u201cIdiotka.\u201d More from WWD The film is getting released […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2301779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[445961,445960,317123,433943,445957,445959,445958,316628,395754],"class_list":["post-2301778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-anna-baryshnikov","tag-fashion-design","tag-feature-film","tag-mikhail-baryshnikov","tag-nastasya-popov","tag-popov","tag-sasha-frolova","tag-south-by-southwest","tag-winter-fashion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\u2018Idiotka-Director-Nastasya-Popov-Mined-the-Drama-of-Fashion-Reality.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2301778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2301780,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301778\/revisions\/2301780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2301779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2301778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2301778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2301778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
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