Biography

Alexander Denysenko is a Ukrainian-Polish film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films explore the moment when a person chooses between someone else's script for their life and their own voice. They lead characters and audiences alike through pain to catharsis - and leave them with hope and the sense that change is possible.

Born in the USSR, he grew up in independent Ukraine - between a world of strength and codes and the world of art. Shaped by both European auteur cinema and Hollywood storytelling - he knows Ukraine from the inside and speaks about it in a language the world understands.

A protégé of Andrzej Wajda - Alexander worked under his artistic guidance and as an assistant on the master's final film, Afterimage. He works under the mentorship of Sławomir Idziak - an Academy Award nominee, cinematographer of Black Hawk Down, Gattaca, and Harry Potter. Member of the Polish Filmmakers Association; served on juries at festivals in Kraków, Paris, and London.

Alexander Denysenko's films have been selected for over 150 international film festivals in 35 countries, earning 54 awards and 78 nominations. Behind each film is an international team - and audiences for whom these stories became personal.

My Passion - Alexander's debut music film, made for the unknown Lviv band Prime Time - won among 6,000 entries in an international video competition, turning an unknown band into a Linkin Park collaborator.

Wonderwall - a film that showed Chernobyl differently - not through fear, but through love and hope. Co-created with Chernobyl Children International, a UN-affiliated charity co-chaired by Ali Hewson, wife of U2's Bono.

Before the Dawn - a four-country co-production shot during full-scale war, it transformed a Ukrainian folk song from a narrative of victimhood into a story of freedom. Named Best European Music Video at ÉCU (Paris); nominated at the Berlin Music Video Awards alongside Lady Gaga and Drake.

His cinema is an invitation to pause and ask yourself: am I the author of my life - or a prop in someone else's story?
- IMDb mini biography by: Henry Chung