Andrei Zagdansky

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

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

The film received the Grand Prix at the final All-Union Documentary Film Festival in 1990. The Soviet Union ceased to exist the following year. Interpretation of Dreams premiered at the opening night of IDFA that same year.

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

He has since directed, edited, and produced a number of feature documentaries.

Vasya (2002) is a groundbreaking film about Soviet/Russian underground artist Vasily Sitnikov, intertwining documentary footage with animated sequences.

Konstantin and Mouse (2006) is a double portrait of avant-garde artist and performance poet Konstantin K. Kuzminsky and his wife, Emma, nicknamed Mouse.

I

Orange Winter (2007) chronicles and dissects the political turmoil in the streets of Kyiv in 2004, later known as the Orange Revolution. Matt Zoller Seitz of The New York Times wrote: “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.”

n 2010, Zagdansky produced and directed his most personal film, My Father Evgeni, about his father, filmmaker Evgeni Zagdansky. George Robinson described it as “a smart, impressionistic documentary about the passage of historical time as experienced by father and son.”

In 2015, he completed Vagrich and the Black Square, about his late friend, 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, Zagdansky completed the feature television documentary Garik, about the brilliant stage director and teacher Gari Chernyakovsky. In 2018 came Michael and Daniel, described by Giuliano Vivaldi of Senses of Cinema as “a meditative and observational masterpiece.”

National Museum was released in August 2021. In 2023, Zagdansky completed the feature documentary Dudunya, the Art and Many Hats of Vladimir Radunsky, a tribute to children’s book author and illustrator Vladimir Radunsky.

That same year, Zagdansky received the Golden Dzyga for his contribution to Ukrainian cinema, a Lifetime Achievement Award. The Dzyga is named after the Ukrainian spinning top and forms the first part of the assumed name of pioneering filmmaker Dziga Vertov.