ReleaseWire Connect

Actress Tania Serrano makes a memorable impact as the mother of a YouTube star in a short film that has surpassed over 5.3 million views. "Why I Did Porn" chronicles the early life of Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, known as VitalyzdTv to his millions of YouTube channel subscribers. The Russian-born comedian is famous for his over-the-top hidden camera pranks.

The work of Spanish actress Tania Serrano has been recognized by the Best Shorts Competition, a juried film festival for short films based in La Jolla, California. "Camila," directed and produced by Carla Roda, features Serrano in the title role. Serrano plays a rape survivor who creates an imagined second personality, "Lana," to help herself cope with the aftermath of the assault. "She's so uncomfortable in her own skin that she just develops this other identity," Serrano explains. "It's almost like she has an identical twin."

With her runway looks and girl-next-door appeal, Swiss-born Spanish actress Tania Serrano is accustomed to being cast as an ingenue. She enjoyed playing a character who's a lot less innocent — and perhaps more dangerous — in her first made-for-web series, Last Teenagers of the Apocalypse. She acted alongside the series' creator and writer, Avan Jogia, in his role of "Bones," one of Satan's minions who has been put in charge of what's left of the earth. She appears in the first two episodes of the four-part series.

A warm reception at the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner — and a win for "Best Thriller" at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival — have inspired writer/director Daniel De Menezes to re-create his critically-acclaimed short film Mia as a feature. And one of the thriller's most notable upgrades may be an expanded role for Spanish-speaking Swiss actress Tania Serrano.

Russian-born comedian Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, known as VitalyzdTv to his four million YouTube channel subscribers, is famous for his over-the-top hidden camera pranks like dressing as a zombie or Russian hitman and frightening innocent bystanders. But his recent short film Why I Did Porn! — featuring Swiss-born actress Tania Serrano as his mother — shows a side of the comedian's early life as an immigrant in America that few have known. The short film has been seen nearly 3.5 million times on YouTube, making it Serrano's highest-profile video project to date.

"What is Hollywood, anyway? It's just a bunch of people from other places," observed Meryl Streep in her recent lifetime achievement award speech at the Golden Globes. "Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if we kick them all out, you'll have nothing to watch…"