“We are honoring with our Legacy Award one of our long-time supporters, Stefania Magidson, the founder and president of the Blue Heron Foundation. Not only has she been a champion of the arts, Romanian cinema, and film festivals here and elsewhere in the U.S., she has also built a great organization, Blue Heron Foundation, to provide scholarship and mentoring to orphans and young people at risk in Romania and Moldova. This year, however, she has shown what her life’s work and mission led to, at the outset of the tragic war in Ukraine. Stefania immediately rallied to raise necessary funds, organized her Blue Heron alumni to pick up refugees from the borders and drive them to safety, provide clothing, emergency hygiene supplies and facilities, find accommodation, partnered with medical groups on the ground to deliver necessary supplies, and organized faster and better than many bigger relief service providers.
With her long-standing record of support for the arts and SEEfest mission, we can be truly proud that one of our own has emerged as a beacon of hope and an extraordinary example of how relief can be provided on the ground even in the middle of the largest and chaotic refugee crisis in Europe since WWII.”
Vera Mijojlić
Director
South East European Film Festival, Los Angeles