Yan is a producer, filmmaker, and experience designer based in New York. His work spans museum exhibitions on Stalin’s postwar repressions of Jews, Jewish life in the Soviet Union, the Holocaust, World War II, and the Cold War.

In 2015, Yan was awarded the Fiddler on the Roof prize by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) for outstanding contributions to the country’s cultural and social life. The award recognized his exhibition Post-War Period: From Catastrophe to Rebirth, created for the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow. The project explored the trajectory of Soviet Jewish life after the Holocaust—through war, repression, survival, and renewal.

Among Yan’s producing credits is “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, which premiered as part of the Official Selection at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The film is based on the bestselling book by Olivier Guez and chronicles the fugitive postwar life of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele—the infamous “Angel of Death” of Auschwitz. It explores his decades-long evasion of justice in South America, as well as the psychological decay of a man haunted by his crimes and forgotten by history.

Born in Moscow, Yan moved to Israel with his family at the age of fourteen. He studied at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology before graduating from Boston University’s Department of Film and Television in 1998.