Russian

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.

Aliaksei Paluyan was born 1989 in Belarus. In 2012 he moved to Germany and studied film and television directing at the Kunsthochschule Kassel (Academy for the Arts). In 2019, his short fiction drama Lake of Happiness, a German-Belarusian-Spainish co-production, premiered in Clermont-Ferrand, won numerous awards at international festivals, was a candidate for European Short Film Award at the 33rd European Film Awards in 2020 and also longlisted for the Oscars 2021. Courage is his documentary film debut.

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.

Aliaksei Paluyan was born 1989 in Belarus. In 2012 he moved to Germany and studied film and television directing at the Kunsthochschule Kassel (Academy for the Arts). In 2019, his short fiction drama Lake of Happiness, a German-Belarusian-Spainish co-production, premiered in Clermont-Ferrand, won numerous awards at international festivals, was a candidate for European Short Film Award at the 33rd European Film Awards in 2020 and also longlisted for the Oscars 2021. Courage is his documentary film debut.

Svetlana Rodina graduated in philology in Kazan and later in film directing in Moscow. She has worked as a reporter and host for various TV programmes on the RTR channel. In 2011 she became editor-in-chief of the documentary department of one of the largest production companies in Russia; United Media Group. Since 2006 she has primarily worked as a script writer and director for documentaries. Laurent Stoop has a diploma in literature and photography. Just after the end of the Soviet Union he moved to Moscow and worked as a freelance photographer with the photo agency Lookat. In 1995 he founded the production company Mayak-Film. Since then he worked as DOP for various television and feature documentaries, including the award winning and critically acclaimed Citizen Khodorkovsky.

Olga Lucovnicova is a Moldovan filmmaker based in Belgium. She studied cinematography at the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts of Moldova, and documentary film directing at the DocNomads Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Program. As a filmmaker, Olga is particularly interested in stories which can generate social change and create a platform for discussion. Her filming style combines observational cinema with poetic elements where the key factors are human emotions and feelings. Her aim is to bring people closer through sincerity, empathy and compassion.

Maria Pronina was born in 1994, in Moscow. She first trained as a ballet dancer. Later, she graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at 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 short fiction film, Rain or Wind, which has been selected for national and international film festivals.

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

Vitaly Akimov was born in 1996, in the provincial town of Arseniev, in the Russian Far East. He is now based in Moscow. He believes that documentary cinema has the power through which we can observe the world.

Zsuzsa Shiri studied sociology and history in ELTE in Budapest and received MFA in TAU. She is living in Israel since 1992, and works as journalist from 2003. From 2006 she was the Israeli correspondent of the Hungarian radio channel Kossuth Radio, and since 2011 she is the Israeli correspondent at the  Media Services and Support Trust Fund, MTVA, the Hungarian public-service broadcasting company.