Documentary
BBC Eye Investigations
Occupied, 2022
Duration: 47 minutes
An intimate portrayal of daily struggle in Russian occupation of Kherson, captured by Dmytro Bahnenko for BBC Eye.
As food and medicines become scarce, people flee, and others begin to disappear. Dmytro and his wife Lidia struggle to shield their four-year-old daughter Ksusha from the war, and make the difficult decision to try to escape.
Narrator: Dmytro Bahnenko
Camera: Dmytro Bahneko, Lidia Biletska, Fred Scott
Executive Producer: Michael Simkin
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova
BBC Eye Investigations
Blood Brothers, 2023
Duration: 26 minutes
An unprecedented look inside the pro-Russian Serbian nationalist movement in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
Reporter: Jovana Georgievski
Camera: Delimir Babic, Predrag Bambic, Sefan Veselinovic
AP: Andjela Milivojevic
Executive Producer: Michael Simkin
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova
In Production
The Girl With A Different Face, 2019-present
Duration: 50 minutes
When Alisa Groshenina was six years old, her parents moved from their tiny village of Yakshina on the border of Europe and Asia to seek work in the industrial city of Nizhny Tagil.
Now grown up and one of the brightest rising starts of contemporary art in Russia, she has decided to return to the place where she was born to capture the ghosts of a dying countryside.
Like many Russian villages, Yakshina is now half-empty. The local factory, the school and the nightclub have all closed; many of the houses have been abandoned; and nearly all the young people have left in search of work. Only the pensioners and the sick remain.
The locals at first seem hostile, but soon a friendship and collaboration forms between them and the young artist.
The film project has participated in the Artdocfest / Baltic Sea Docs Pitching programme in 2019 in Riga.
BBC Our World
Russian Women Fight Back, 2019
Duration: 26 minutes
Russia has a deadly culture of domestic abuse that kills hundreds of women every year. Victims who appeal to authorities for help are often ignored until it is too late to save them from violent partners.
Largely seen as a private matter, the Russian government and conservative pressure groups have pushed back against campaigns for legal and cultural reforms to protect victims of domestic violence.
Now, an unlikely alliance of female activists, lawyers, and politicians - including from Vladimir Putin’s own party - are demanding change.
In this unique documentary, reporter Lucy Ash meets the brave women on the front line of the battle for new legislation and protection for victims.
Reporter: Lucy Ash
Cameraman: Evgeny Zhuravlev
Research: Nina Nazarova
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova
BBC Our World
Ukraine’s Frontline Bakery, 2017
Duration: 26 minutes
This documentary takes us to the heart of the community of the frontline town of Mariinka in eastern Ukraine. Despite the fighting, a bakery has opened providing hope for the locals and employment for those who have lost their jobs. As the conflict continues in the region, locals are still struggling to survive in a life that is surrounded by fighting, poverty and family division.
Reporter: Lucy Ash
Cameraman: Fredrick Paxton
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova
BBC Our World
The Uighurs, Silk Road Survivors, 2015
Duration: 26 minutes
This documentary focuses on the colourful Uighur community along the Silk Road in Kazakhstan. Unlike the Uighur community across the border in China’s Xinjiang province, the Uighur community in Kazakhstan have been spared persecution and are free to keep up with their cultural traditions. But China’s growing influence in the country has left many feeling threatened.
Reporter: Rustam Qobil
Cameraman: Abduaziz Madyarov
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova
BBC Our World
Ukraine’s Aids Racket, 2013
Duration: 26 minutes
Ukraine has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in Europe. Social stigma and poverty drive many of those infected into an underworld where they can get little support. Yet recent campaigning and foreign aid is providing hope and treatment for those in need.
Reporter: Lucy Ash
Cameraman: Rupert Binsley
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova
BBC Our World
The Edge of the Earth, 2012
Duration: 26 minutes
Russia’s Arctic is vastly rich in oil and gas deposits crucial for the national economy. But while state companies mine the region for its resources, the life of indigenous reindeer herders has been disturbed.
Lucy Ash travels to the Yamal peninsula to spend time in the tundra with a community of reindeer herders before visiting a gas facility owned by Gazprom.
Reporter: Lucy Ash
Cameraman: Yuri Ermolin
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova
BBC World / Daffodil Productions
Staging a Revolution, 2011
Duration: 26 minutes
The Belarus Free Theatre are a bold troupe of actors who have been banned in their home country for their open criticism of Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship. They perform in secret, and their performances have been subject to raids and arrests. This documentary follows their life inside Belarus, before the theatre’s core members were forced to flee to the United Kingdom in fear of their lives. The film was screened in the One World International Documentary in 2011.
Reporter: Mathew Charles
Camera: Matthew Charles / Albina Kovalyova
Directed and Produced by Albina Kovalyova and Matthew Charles