Moscow International Documentary Film Festival Doker (hereinafter referred to as the Festival) is a professional documentary film screening contest for documentaries from all over the world that is held annually in Moscow and other Russian cities.

SVETOLIK MICHA ZAJC, Serbia

Film Editor and Sound Designer

Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia 1959. 1983 graduated at FAMU, Film and Television Faculty, Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Professional work started in Sarajevo 1984 as an editor in International Radio Television center covering Winter Olympic games. After that situated in Belgrade and worked until now on more than hundred feature films as sound editor and sound designer. Also edited picture for commercials, documentaries and short films.

Sound editor of first Yugoslav Dolby Stereo film. 1988 started collaboration with director Emir Kusturica collecting most of the music for his film Time of the Gypsies. Later, Kusturica also persuaded him to start editing picture for feature films.

From 1998 to 2010 he was teaching on Faculty for film and Television, University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia and also at Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. He had Workshops and Master Classes at EFA Berlin Germany, TUMO Center Yerevan Armenia, EICTV school CUBA.

Worked with most prominent European, Yugoslav and Serbian film artist.

OLGA STEFANOVA, Russia

Documentary filmmaker and traveler

Olga was born in Moscow in 1981. Has a diploma from the journalistic department of Lomonosov Moscow State University and from the director’s department of VGIK (2006), workshop of Igor Gelein.

She has participated in seven expeditions to Antarctica, spent wintering (2009-2010) at the Bellingshausen polar station as a member of the 54th Russian Antarctic Expedition. Since 2008 she has been working in documentary cinema popularising the topic of high-latitude expeditions, polar explorations, life in hard-to-reach places of the planet. Winner of the Main Prize of the Russian Geographical Society 2016. In 2017 Olga started a project on restoration of the cemetery of polar explorers in Antarctica. Director of Autonomous nonprofit organization Radio Russian Arctic.

Director of the films The Light of the White Sea (2005), Beslan. Right to Life (2006), Wintering (2010), Border Effect (2012), Russian Antarctica. 21st Century (2015), Vostok Station. On the Threshold of Life (2016), Buromsky Island (2020) and others. The films have been participants and winners of dozens of film festivals in Russia and abroad, among the film awards: Best Cinematography Award at the Message to Man Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Human Rights Award at the Stalker Film Festival in Moscow, Audience Award at the Serbian festival Strong in Spirit, National Laurel Branch Award for Best Educational Film of the Year, Best Documentary Award at the Man and Nature Film Festival in Irkutsk, National Crystal Compass Award in the Education category and many others.

SULTAN USUVALIEV, Kyrgyzstan

Film critic, PhD in Art History, Director & Producer

Born in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Graduated from VGIK scriptwriting and film studies department where he completed his post-graduate course. 

Together with Roman Naveskin in 2011 he founded an independent film magazine Film Sense.

In 2022 defended his Ph.D. thesis on the problems of studying the history of Soviet film art based on the scientific heritage of Nikolai Iezuitov, one of the founders of Russian film studies.

In 2023, together with Nurjamal Karamoldoeva, he released his debut documentary Who Is Next?. The documentary had its international premiere at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in May 2023. The film received a Special Jury Mention. Who’s Next? is a crime drama about the death of Aizada Kanatbekova in April 2021 as a result of an abduction for the purpose of forced marriage, an officially condemned but still widespread practice in Kyrgyzstan.

Sultan was the compiler and editor of Armen Medvedev’s book, The Conjunctive Mood. Conversations on the History of Domestic Cinema, which was published in 2023. Armen Medvedev is a major figure in the history of Soviet and Russian cinema. He was a witness and participant of the most important cinematographic events in the country, since 1980 he had taught film critique at VGIK. Sultan completed Medvedev’s first film history workshop and collected the recorded lectures in one book to pay tribute to the Master.

Sultan currently teaches at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek.