Evgeny Afineevsky

Evgeny Afineevsky is an Oscar and Emmy-nominated director, whose current documentary, CRIES FROM SYRIA, was an Official Selection at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Afineevsky won Best Director and earned nomination for Best Documentary from the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards. He and his film earned IPA Satellite Awards nominations for Best Documentary and Best Song in a Documentary for PRAYERS FOR THIS WORLD, performed by Cher. The Awards Circuit Community Awards nominated his movie as Best Documentary Feature for 2017. He won International Documentary Association’s Courage Under Fire Award, earned a PGA Award nomination, won a Humanitas Prize and Cinema for Peace Awards as Most Valuable Documentary of the Year, won 32nd Fort Lauderdale Film Festival, Documentaries Without Borders Film Festival and 51st Houston WorldFest Film Festival, as well as the Overseas Press Club’s Peter Jennings Award. Recently Afineevsky and his movie CRIES FROM SYRIA earned 4 Emmy nominations. In creating CRIES FROM SYRIA, Afineevsky spent months on the ground in Syria, using his cameras to craft a comprehensive account of the brutal five-year civil war. He edited hundreds of hours of footage from Syrian activists and citizen journalists, as well as testimony from child protestors, leaders of the revolution, human-rights defenders, ordinary citizens, and high-ranking army generals who defected to tell this important story. Afineevsky built his filmmaking career on providing a first-hand account of conflict, even if it means putting his own life in danger. He earned an Oscar and Emmy nomination in 2016 for WINTER ON FIRE: UKRAINE’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, which details the 2013 student uprising that transformed into a violent revolution. The film also looked at the shady negotiations between Ukraine’s corrupt former president, Viktor Yanukovich, and Russian president Vladimir Putin that kept Ukraine from joining the European Union. Afineevsky’s tenacity in his storytelling ultimately attracted the unwanted attention of Russian intelligence agents, who continue to track him and his work. WINTER ON FIRE was an Official Selection of the Venice and Telluride International film festivals. He won the People’s Choice Award for the Best Documentary from the Toronto International Film Festival and received Television Academy Honors Award. His documentary work dates back to his life in Russia as a teenager, where he won First Prize for Best Documentary at the Black Sea International Film Festival. He’s since continued to demonstrate a commitment documenting important stories of change, but he also has worked in a wide spectrum of genres. From 1994-2000, he produced more than 30 musicals in Israel, including BAT (DIE FLEDERMAUS), GYPSY BARON, VIENNESE BLOOD, NIGHT IN VENICE, SILVA PRINCESS OF CHARDAS, MOZART KONZERTE (with the Prague National Opera Orchestra), among many others. He also directed the Israeli TV series DAYS OF LOVE in 1999. His work in feature films include producing a modern-day adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s classic novel CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (2002), which stars Crispin Glover, Vanessa Redgrave, John Hurt, and Margot Kidder; OPEN HEART (2002); AND DEATH GAME (2001), starring Billy Drago and Joe Lara. All three films went on to win accolades from the Houston WorldFest. He wrote and directed the 2009 family comedy starring Lainie Kazan, OY VEY! MY SON IS GAY!! (2009), for which he won more than 23 international film awards. He also wrote and directed DIVORCE: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE KIDS’ EYES (2014), which provides an educational look at the different situations the children of divorced parents deal with. Afineevsky resides in Los Angeles and is a member of the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Directors Guild of America and Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.