Born in
Kyiv,
Ukrainian SSR (now in
Ukraine), Perelman was an
only child who lived with his extended family in a
communal flat. He is from a
Jewish background. When Perelman was nine, his father was killed in a car accident. Five years later, he and his mother were granted permission to leave Kyiv and lived in
Vienna for two months before moving to
Rome, a transfer point in the 1980s for Jewish emigrants from the USSR. Remembering that period, Perelman likens himself to the kids in
Luis Buñuel's
Los Olvidados — a street
urchin "always searching for a hunk of bread or a
scam to pull." He supported himself and his young mother in this fashion for a year. When a Canadian visa finally came, they left for that country where Perelman would ultimately build a new life and start his career. Following some rather tumultuous teenage years, Perelman finally began to concentrate on his formal education. He attended the
University of Alberta, majoring in
physics and
maths, before a sophomore-year class in film-making changed his focus. Moving to
Toronto, he studied film at
Ryerson University's School of Image Arts for two years, before launching his own Toronto-based production house, called Canned Films. After honing his skills directing and editing music videos, he decided to move to
Los Angeles to further his career. Over the next three years, Perelman directed multinational
television commercials for
Microsoft,
General Motors,
Panasonic,
Nike, Airwalk, AT&T, Sony PlayStation, Coors and MasterCard, and
music videos including Kelly Clarkson's "
Because of You." == Film directorial career ==