Zhenia Kazankina
Directing
Biography
Zhenia Kazankina (she/her) is a director, screenwriter, and editor, born in Moscow, Russia, in 1996. She graduated from the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and is currently based in Rome, Italy. Her work explores themes of adaptation, attachment, and the search for belonging, often through the lens of feminine characters and perspectives. Unfolding in a collective dimension, her stories are rooted in metaphorical concepts and personal experience, and touched with elements of mystery and fable. Her short films have screened at international festivals including Cannes, Locarno, Palm Springs ShortFest, ZINEBI, True/False, Curtas Vila do Conde and many others. Her recent short film "City of Owls" premiered at Cannes Film Festival in the Semaine de la Critique program. She is an alumna of Locarno Filmmakers Academy, Spring Academy, and Reykjavík Talent Lab.
Known For
Outskirts of Moscow. A girl comes to an unfamiliar apartment to look after a dog. After a while, she realizes that the owner of the apartment has disappeared. She finds herself into a series of people that have been taking care of the dog for years in that same apartment, creating a weird community around this strange absence of the owner.
New
On the last evening before her departure, Vera is putting her small sister to bed. To hide the real reason for her leaving, she tells her a bedtime fairy tale instead. It's the story of a city swallowed by an eternal night.
City of Owls
Following a mass emigration from Russia, a poignant love letter emerges in the abandoned home spaces of friends and family.
Empty Rooms
Polina lives and works in a small hotel in the northern border town. She and her friend Nadia dream of a different, paradise and exotic world. The girls almost never leave the empty immobilized hotel and live, performing their strange daily rituals in the hope that someday they will lead them to a miracle. Once a stranger arrives at the hotel.
Rio
Deprived of their familiar context, the heroes of ancient Greek myths find themselves in a Moscow park.
Continuity of Parks
Simple demands of love, which are usually hidden behind closed doors of fear and vulnerability, are playfully celebrated here as a riddle of shapes and gestures found among tons of archival material.