Filmmakers and Supporters
DMYTRO HRESHKO
Film Director
Dmytro Hreshko is a Ukrainian director and cinematographer from Transcarpathia. His short film Save Me, Doctor! (2020) was awarded Best Ukrainian Film at the 14th Lviv International Short Film Festival Wiz-Art and received a Special Jury Prize at the Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival. His debut feature documentary, Mountains and Heaven in Between (2021), premiered at the 19th Docudays UA and went on to screen internationally at Sheffield DocFest, FIPADOC, DOK Leipzig, and Krakow Film Festival. A regular participant in international workshops and co-production markets—including Sunny Side of the Doc, DOK Leipzig Co-Pro Market, East Doc Platform, Baltic Sea Docs, CEDOC Market, and Eurodoc, Hreshko is a member of the Ukrainian Association of Cinematographers and the Ukrainian Film Academy. Since the end of 2024, he has been serving in the Cultural Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Filmography
- King Lear: How we looked for love during the war (2023) – feature-length documentary
- Mountains and Heaven In Between (2021) – feature-length documentary
- Save Me, Doctor! (2020) – short documentary
- Snow Leopard of the Carpathians (2019) – feature-length TV documentary
- 72 Hours (2019) – short documentary
- 66 Scenes of Uzhhorod (2018) – medium-format documentary
POLINA HERMAN
Producer
Polina Herman is a Ukrainian-born film producer and founder of UP UA Studio (Kyiv) and UP USA Studio (Los Angeles). She works across independent documentary and fiction production, cultural programming, and international co-productions. Since 2022, she has been based in Los Angeles, where she launched Ukrainian Film Days with American Cinematheque.
A member of the Producers Guild of America, Television Academy, European and Ukrainian Film Academies, Film Independent, and IDA, Polina’s credits include Divia (2025), Antarctica: War Diaries (2024), Virgin Murder (2024), King Lear: Searching for Love During the War (2023), and Mountains and Heaven in Between (2022).
Polina has served as a PR Director at Insight Media LLC, distribution specialist at 435 Films and Big Hand Films, and producer at the National Cinematheque of Ukraine. She is member of the Producers Guild of America (PGA), European Film Academy (EFA), Ukrainian Film Academy, National Union of Cinematographers of Ukraine, International Documentary Association (IDA), and Film Independent.
GLIB LUKIANETS
Producer
Glib Lukianets is an award-winning film producer, founder of the Gogol Foundation and its UNESCO-recognized production house, Gogol Film. An alumnus of the National Film School in Łódź, EURODOC and Global Media Makers (Los Angeles), he also serves as an expert for the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
His films have premiered at major international festivals including Karlovy Vary, IDFA, DOK Leipzig, and FIFDH Geneva, earning multiple awards and critical acclaim at events such as the IDFA Forum, DOK Leipzig, Molodist, Sunny Side of the Doc, and East Doc Platform.
Glib Lukianets was born in Kyiv, Ukraine on the day of dissolution of the Soviet Union, in a family, a dynasty of guardians from Left-Bank Ukraine. He earned his Degree in Economics from Kyiv National Economic University and Degree in Arts from Leon Schiller National Film School, the leading film academy according to The Hollywood Reporter. Since 2014 Glib Lukianets is based in Lodz, Poland.
RICHARD VALK
Co-Producer
Valk Productions was founded in 1999 by director and producer Richard Valk. Valk Productions produces short artistic animation projects, like It’s Nice in Here (Semaine de la Critique Cannes 2022 and Oscars shortlist 2022) by Robert-Jonathan Koeyers, documentaries like Douwe Dijkstra’s Neighbour Abdi (Locarno Film Festival, winner of the Pardino d’Oro for Best International Short Film 2022) and VR projects like Adriaan Lokman’s Flow VR, Februar by Maarten Isaak de Heer and The Miracle Basket by Abner Preis (Venice Immersive 2022).
An important resemblance in all productions can be found in the fact that they are independent, artistic films and VR projects, such as the collaborations with Daphna Awadish, Hisko Hulsing, Juliana Erazo, Arjan Brentjes, Abner Preis, Daan Lucas, Suzie Templeton and many projects with Rosto (†), but also with international talent such as Dmytro Hreshko and Sandra Desmazières. In addition, Valk Productions likes to collaborate with international co-producers like Autour de Minuit (FR), Vivi Film and Take Five (BE), Twenty One Pictures (NO) and Animais (PT).
This artistic level is how Valk Productions likes to profile itself. The focus of the company is to collaborate with creative makers who come up with innovative, original or daring ideas and to tell moving stories from all over the world.
SAM SLATER
Composer (DE/UK)
Sam Slater is a composer, sound designer, and record producer whose work bridges contemporary classical composition, experimental electronics, and sound for screen. He has twice won Grammy Awards for his role as score producer and musical sound designer on the Oscar winning film Joker and Emmy winning Chernobyl. He has worked extensively with Hildur Guðnadóttir, co-composing the soundtrack to Battlefield 2042.
That project earned him the Icelandic Music Award for Producer of the Year and the Society of Composers Composers & Lyricists Award for Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media. Slater composed the score for 2000 Meters to Andriivka, a documentary by Mstyslav Chernov chronicling the war in Ukraine. The film premiered at Sundance in January 2025.
Slater’s own work is characterized by the use of unconventional sound sources and the design of new instruments, often blurring the boundary between composition and sonic engineering. He has constructed custom electroacoustic devices, altered acoustic instruments for new tonal possibilities, and used extended recording techniques to capture unusual resonance, distortion, and texture. These methods inform his solo releases – Wrong Airport Ghost (2018) and I Do Not Wish To Be Known As A Vandal (2022) – and collaborative works. In 2025, he founded Mt. Brings Death with American guitarist Mason Lindahl, a label for experimental and cross-media projects.
ANASTASIIA PUHACH
Executive Producer
Anastasiia Puhach is an Executive Director and Producer at UP UA STUDIO. She is focused on working with partners, distributors, broadcasters, Impact producers, public relations, and participation in co-production markets.
She was Executive Producer for Antarctica: War Diaries and Producer of the documentary film, Attention: Children. She has played significant roles with film festivals and film-related events, including the OKKO Film Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria, the Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival, Ukrainian Film Festival Berlin, Ukrainian Institute in Berlin, UNFPA, Kinovernissage, Kharkiv MeetDocs International Film Festival, and the Geneva Call project.
Between 2015 to 2019, she was press secretary and then the co-director of the Theatre of Displaced People in Ukraine. Previously, Anastasia worked for more than a decade in television at the Donbas TV Channel (Donetsk) and the Ukraine TV Channel (Donetsk).
She was a scriptwriter for musicals, morning and children’s programs, and a news correspondent and news editor. While working in Donetsk, she was a correspondent during the turbulent events of 2014.
DAN FRANK
Executive Producer
Dan Frank is an award-winning producer and director of a wide variety of films, television, and commercials. His narrative and documentary work has screened at dozens of film festivals, including Big Sky, Woodstock, Independent Film Festival Boston, New Orleans Film Festival, Vancouver Asian Film Festival, and Slamdance.
He directed and co-produced Cool Spaces, a PBS series about American architecture, produced Invention & Alchemy, a Grammy nominated concert film, and was a Coordinating Producer, managing 9 film crews, for Boston – The Documentary, a theatrical and streaming release about the history of the Boston Marathon and the 2013 bombing. He has produced programming for numerous networks, including Discovery, FOX, NBCUniversal, HGTV, DIY, and TLC.
He is an Assistant Professor, Film & TV Production, at Endicott College in Massachusetts, USA. He is a co-founder and co-director of the Lowell Film Festival for Future Filmmakers, the largest student film festival based in New England, USA.
Directors of Photography
Dmytro Hreshko
Volodymyr Usyk
Editors
Alexander Legostaev
Anastasia Kirillova
Dmytro Hreshko
Editorial Advisors
Olha Zhurba
Niels Dekker
Sound Design
Vasyl Yavtushenko
Mykhailo Zakutskyi
Colour
Axel Rundquist (Tint Post)
World-class post-production house Tint is known for Triangle of Sadness (Palme d’Or and three Oscar nominations) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2 BAFTAs and three Oscar nominations) provided full colour grading as in-kind sponsorship.
Poster and trailer
Starlight Creative
SUPPORTERS
Financial Support
Polish Film Institute
Netherlands Film Fund
FILM BOOST scholarship program jointly with Deutsche Filmakademie and DOCUDAYS UA;
Ukrainian Film Academy, in cooperation with Netflix – production & post-production grants
Emergency Support Initiative by Kyiv Biennial;
Göteborg Film Fund – development grant;
Prague Civil Society Center – production grant.
Additional Support
Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine
State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine
Cultural Forces
Ukraïner
Babylon13
Tint Post
Starlight Creative
Docudays UA
Office of the Prosecutor General
B2B Doc
Film Independent
Global Media Makers.
Workshops
East West Talent Lab на goEast Festival 2021
Works In Progress: Ukraine на Stockholm International Film Festival 2022
The “Young Europe” project, organized by DocEu Foundation 2022
“Filmmakers at risk” by Baltic to Black Sea Documentary Network and WATCH DOCS International Film Festival 2022
Visegrad Pitch, presentation of Ukrainian film projects at East Doc Platform, 2023
Beldocs Pitching Forum 2023
The Baltic Sea Docs 2023
Sunny Side of the Doc in Nature & Conservation section 2023
CEDOC Market 2023
Eurodoc 2023
CUTTING EDGE PITCHING, Documentary Industry Days of Odesa IFF in Gdynia Poland 2023. Award, colour grading at Tint post-production house in Göteborg
DOK Co-Pro Market 2023, DOK Leipzig. Current Time TV Award
Winter Film Market OIFF 2024
Docu Rough Cut Boutique 2024
East Doc Platform 2024