Girl Away from Home (Devočka vdali ot doma)

Simon Lereng Wilmont was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He graduated as a Documentary Film Director from The National Film School of Denmark in 2009. His first feature documentary film The Distant Barking of Dogs (2017), premiered at IDFA, and was awarded Best First Appearance. It has since then won 35+ awards worldwide, among these the McBaine Documentary Feature Award at San Francisco’s SFFILM Festival, it was nominated for a European Film Award (EFA 2018), an Emmy (2020), and shortlisted for an Oscar (2019). The film also won a Peabody Award (2020). As a director, his films also include Dormitory Master (2009), Above Ground, Beneath the Sky (2008), Chikara - The Sumo Wrestler’s Son (2013) and The Fencing Champion (2014).

Alisa Kovalenko was born and grew up in Zaporizhia, South-Eastern Ukraine and studied documentary cinema at the Karpenko-Kary National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television in Kyiv and at the Andrzej Wajda School in Warsaw. Alisa’s debut feature-length documentary Alisa in Warland, a personal diary through revolution and war in Ukraine, had its world premiere in the First Appearance competition at IDFA 2015 in Amsterdam. Home Games (2018), a social fairy-tale with a sensitive female gaze about the broken dreams of a young professional female football player, appeared at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2018 and played again at IDFA Amsterdam, featured in over 100 festivals and multi-awarded. In 2021, Home Games was the first Ukrainian creative documentary ever acquired by Netflix. In 2018, Alisa directed and coordinated A Beautiful Game, a 10-part documentary series commissioned by Current Time TV. That year, she became a member of the European Film Academy (EFA). After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Alisa joined a volunteer fighting unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU), directly engaged on the front line in the Kyiv and the Kharkiv region. She fought in the trenches for four months before returning to finish his documentary film We Will Not Fade Away. We Will Not Fade Away had its world premiere at Berlinale Generation 2023. Meanwhile, as the war in Ukraine continues, Alisa presented a project at the IDFA Forum 2022 based on the footage filmed during her combat time, supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures and Netflix.