Maria Stoianova
Kyiv-based Maria Stoianova (b. 1986) delivers a paean to persistence and self-reliance in the form of video-diary dispatches from Zinaida, a woman living in Mariupol—the tragic port-city which, even at the time of the film’s completion, was under continual stress because of conflicts in the surrounding Donbas. Over 17 weeks, we glimpse observations from Zinaida’s daily life recorded on her phone or via a basic camcorder, which she sends privately to her daughter—the latter (filmmaker Zoya Laktionova, co-director of Diorama) based far away from the war-zone in the country’s capital. (N.Y.)