Andrei Zagdansky

Award-winning documentary filmmaker, member of the European Film Academy, Andrei Zagdansky was born on March 9, 1956 in Kyiv, Ukraine, back then a part of the Soviet Union.  He received an MFA with distinction from Kyiv State University of Theatrical Arts.

His first feature documentary, the seminal Interpretation of Dreams (1990), juxtaposed the filmmaker’s dialog with Sigmund Freud and the history of the Soviet Union. The result was “interesting and provocative” (Vincent Canby, The New York Times) and an "astonishing marriage of Freudian thinking and history” (Boston Globe). 

The film was awarded with the Grand–Prix of the last “All– Union” Documentary film festival in 1990 (the Soviet Union ceased to exist the following year)  and premiered at the opening night of IDFA that same year.

In 1992 Andrei and his family relocated to the United States. In 1994 he received a Rockefeller Fellowship. He taught several film courses at New School in New York.

 He directed/edited/produced a number of  feature documentaries, among them Vasya
(2002), a groundbreaking film that intertwines documentary footage with animated sequences, about a Soviet/Russian underground artist Vasily Sitnikov, 
Konstantin and Mouse (2006) is a double portrait of an avant-garde figure and performance poet Konstantin K. Kuzminsky and his wife Emma, nicknamed Mouse.  
Orange Winter (2007)  chronicles and dissects political turmoil in the streets of Kiev in 2004, that was later dubbed "Orange revolution".

 "Orange Winter" is more than a mere history lesson. Like Norman Mailer's nonfiction novel "The Armies of the Night,"... this movie characterizes a body politic as a living thing, and charts its internal changes as if it were the protagonist in a drama”. 
Matt Zoller Seitz, The New York Times

 In 2010 Andrei produced/directed his most personal film My Father Evgeni about his father, also a filmmaker, Evgeni Zagdansky.
“My Father Evgeni is "a smart, impressionistic documentary about the passage of historical time as experienced by father and son”. (George Robinson). 

 In 2015 Andrei completed  Vagrich and the Black Square about his late friend, an avant-garde artist Vagrich Bakhchanyan. 
The film-collage blends documentary, animation and staged theatrical performance in an uplifting tribute to a free-thinking man. 

In 2017 Andrei completed a feature TV documentary Garik, about a brilliant, multi–talented stage director and teacher Gari Chernyakovsky and in 2018 Michael and Daniel,  “a meditative and observational masterpiece”.
Giuliano Vivaldi, Senses of Cinema.

National Museum  was released in August of 2021 and currently Andrei is working on a number of projects. Messiah, or a Town and a Half and A Lockdown Diary are among them. 

In 2023 he completed feature documentary “Dudunya, the Art and Many Hats of Vladimir Radunsky” a tribute to a children’s books author and illustrator Vladimir Radunsky.

The same year Andrei was awarded the Golden Dzyga for his contribution to the Ukrainian cinema (Life time achievement award).
(Dzyga is the Ukrainian for a “spinning top”and is the first part of David Kaufman famously assumed name Dzyga Vertov)