Generations of Filmmaking

  • Helen Alexis Yonov

    WRITER-DIRECTOR-PRODUCER

  • A MOTHER-DAUGHTER TEAM

  • Gail Yonov-Root

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

Our family has been in Hollywood and in the Independent Film Industry since the 1920s.

Helen Alexis Yonov’s Danish great grandfather Mark Hansen came to the United States of America on the Lusitania in 1912. After living in Montana and Minnesota, Mark moved his family to Hollywood, California, in 1921. Her grandmother (and Gail’s mother) Helen Martina Hansen was 6 months old when she arrived in Los Angeles.

With barely a high school education, Mark Hansen came to own several independent movie theatres throughout Los Angeles, including the Marcal and Larchmont Theatres. He was also one of the owners of the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard. In the 1940s, he became momentarily of interest in relation to the Black Dahlia Murder.

After graduating Hollywood High, Helen Hansen attended University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) before transferring to the Pasadena Playhouse.

However, Helen’s pursuit of being an actress was unexpectedly halted when she fell in love with Fredric Franklin Kubias. She also understood that the difficulties of being an actress in Hollywood brought with it many hardships that she personally felt that she could do without. She chose a family, later having a daughter named Gail.

Helen married another two times. First to William F. Taylor, who was a locations agent/manager for film & commercials in Central California, an independent short documentary filmmaker, and the director of a mockumentary, Mr. Sherlock Holmes of London.

Helen’s second Jack Shire was a hotelier and developer, whose time spent in Los Angeles made him familiar with the Hollywood crowd.

Gail Helen Yonov Root (née Kubias) was born in Pasadena, California. She attended the Ramona Convent School for Girls in Alhambra before going to Brilliantmont in Lausanne, Switzerland. She went on to attend Los Angeles Community College (LACC) and graduated with a French degree from the University of Southern California (USC.)

Throughout her life, Gail stayed away from acting and modeling, even though she considered momentarily pursuing the latter. In 1971, she married Serge Alexis Yonov and found herself (in her words) living an incredibly exciting and enriching life as a Navy wife (and later as a diplomat.)

After the death of her husband in 2005, Gail moved forward with her life, remarrying several years later. Since Executive Producing The Weight of It in 2008, Gail has worked along side her daughter Alexis on all her projects, most recently the documentary on her late husband. Without having a crystal ball, Gail never expected that she would have found herself supporting and working with her daughter in the film industry.

Her grandparents’ backgrounds made Helen Alexis Yonov interested in storytelling, writing, filmmaking, and art at a very young age. Alexis grew up primarily in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, but also spent time in Malaysia and Russia (USSR.) After graduating from the Portsmouth Abbey School, Alexis double majored in Film and Creative Writing, first at Ohio’s Denison University and then at Boston’s Emerson College (where she graduated in 2001.)

When she moved to Los Angeles in 2002, Alexis found herself working as a set production assistant on many large productions, including Seabiscuit, Anchorman, War of the Worlds, and Elizabethtown.

In 2008, Alexis made her short film The Weight of It, which was loosely inspired by the recent loss of her father. She continued to shoot several short projects before moving to Paris, France, in 2011, in order to write the feature film, The Burden of Light. While here, Alexis worked on several projects and began directing commercials. She was also able to receive dual citizenship with Latvia, which allows her to work in the EU.

After returning to Los Angeles in 2018, Alexis directed the award-winning short film, The Gesture and the Word, which she wrote while living in Paris. Inspired by her time there, the film has captivated a world-wide audience. With Gail’s continued support, Alexis continues the family tradition.