Kira Kovalenko

Kira Kovalenko (Кира Коваленко), born December 12, 1989, in Nalchik (then in the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, SFSR, USSR), is a Russian film director and screenwriter. After graduating from high school, Kira Kovalenko enrolled in design school, where she studied websi... More

Kira Kovalenko (Кира Коваленко), born December 12, 1989, in Nalchik (then in the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, SFSR, USSR), is a Russian film director and screenwriter. After graduating from high school, Kira Kovalenko enrolled in design school, where she studied website design, among other subjects. She also worked as a television correspondent. From 2010 to 2015, she studied at the Alexander Sokurov Kabardino-Balkarian Film Studio at the Kabardino-Balkarian State University (ru), the same year as director Kantemir Balagov. During her studies, Kovalenko directed several short films. After graduating, she moved to Abkhazia and then to St. Petersburg. In 2017, she moved to Moscow. Her first feature film, Sofitchka (ru), was released in 2016. It is a film adaptation of the story of the same name by Fazil Iskander. The film premiered in competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Her second feature film, Unclenched Fists, was screened in the Un Certain Regard selection at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Un Certain Regard Prize.