Russia

Yulia Vishnevets is a Moscow based filmmaker and journalist, with a passion for exploring society through documentary storytelling. She is a staff film director of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty in Moscow. Her interests ranges from social exclusion to identities, conflicts and how people are affected by their surrounding environment. Her first full-length documentary film, A House on the Edge (2016), depicting both sides of the conflict in Ukraine, had a number of screenings in Russia, Germany and USA, including prominent Artdocfest festival in Moscow and was recently purchased for Currenttime.tv channel.

Maria Pronina was born in 1994 in Moscow. She first trained as a ballet dancer. Later she graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at the Moscow State University, and studied directing at the Moscow Film School. She works in the field of video production as a director, producer and ghostwriter. In 2020, she made her debut with a fiction short film Rain or Wind, selected for national and international film festivals.

Anna Artemyeva was born in Moscow. She graduated as a cinematographer and as director of animation at VGIK (Russia). She started her Masters at the DocNomads documentary directing program in 2019. Her diploma film Once upon a time there lived a mother was selected to more than 50 festivals around the world and was awarded several times. She frequently collaborates with the Russian director Elena Laskaki.

István Gábor Takács studied to be a psychologist and has worked as a human rights activist, video filmmaker, trainer and contributor at the Law Reporter Foundation. He led the video program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2007 and 2015, and worked for five years in the needle exchange program of the Drug Prevention Foundation. He is the author of several articles on harm reduction, and the cinematographer, film editor and co-director of over 700 online videos.

Yuriy Pivovarov was born in Moscow in 1990. He majored in philosophy at the Russian State University. He has worked as a first camera assistant in movie productions since 2013, and has attended the Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov School of Documentary Film and Theater since 2018.

István Gábor Takács studied to be a psychologist and has worked as a human rights activist, video filmmaker, trainer and contributor at the Law Reporter Foundation. He led the video program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2007 and 2015, and worked for five years in the needle exchange program of the Drug Prevention Foundation. He is the author of several articles on harm reduction, and the cinematographer, film editor and co-director of over 700 online videos.

Born in Uzbekistan, Askold Kurov has lived in Russia since 1991. He earned a degree in documentary filmmaking at Marina Razbezhkina and Mikhail Ugarov’s School of Documentary Film and Theater in Moscow. His films Winter, Go Away!, Leninland and Children 404 won critical acclaim and were screened at numerous festivals. His work focuses on human rights and social conflict in contemporary Russia.

Dmitri Vologdin was born in Russia in 1988. He graduated from the St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television with a degree in Film and TV Directing, and studied at the Cinema School of Krzysztof Zanussi in Warsaw.

Georgy Molodtsov is an award-winning director and producer who specializes in production of 360/VR content, as well as organizing cinematic VR events as part of film festivals that showcase 360 content. He is the co-founder of the VRability social project and Russian VR Seasons initiative. He is also the curator of the goEast film festival’s Open Frame Award and VR Scientific Festival in Sweden.