ALISA KOVALENKO: 2024 CHICKEN & EGG AWARD RECIPIENT
Alisa Kovalenko (she/her) is a Ukrainian award-winning director and a member of the European Film Academy. Alisa’s debut documentary Alisa in Warland, a personal diary through revolution and war in Ukraine, premiered at IDFA in 2015. Home Games, a social fairytale about a young Ukrainian female soccer player, appeared at Sheffield DocFest in 2018, and was again selected at IDFA. Home Games has played at over 100 festivals and was the first Ukrainian creative documentary acquired by Netflix.
In 2019, Alisa started filming a teenage adventure documentary set in war-torn Donbas. We Will Not Fade Away had its World Premiere at the Berlinale 2023. To date, the film has won 15 international awards, including the Ukrainian Film Academy Award 2023 for the best Ukrainian documentary, and it was selected for the European Film Awards 2023.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Alisa immediately joined a volunteer combat unit associated with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Alisa fought in the frontline trenches for months, where she captured footage for her current work-in-progress, Frontline.
Alisa grew up in Zaporizhzhia, in South-Eastern Ukraine, and studied at the Karpenko-Kary National University of Cinema in Kyiv and at the Andrzej Wajda School in Warsaw.