Talent short film Lab 2025-2026
Ploužák
Director: Mariia Felenko
15’ Fiction
Genre: Psychological drama
Country of production: Ukraine, TBD
Looking for: Co-producer, Fund, Distributor, Crew
Logline:
On her 17th birthday, Anya, who has been living with her sister in the Czech Republic since their mother’s death, decides to return to Ukraine, but first she has to make peace with the fact that her sister chose to stay.
Mariia Felenko is a filmmaker from Ukraine. She received her first education as a puppet theatre actress and later continued her film directing studies at the Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema, and Television named after I.K. Karpenko-Kary. Her student films screened at festivals such as Palm Springs ShortFest, Linz IFF (with Mother, 2024), and EnergaCamerimage (with Butterfly Dance, 2021, in the Film and Art School Études Panorama).
From 2022 to 2025, she studied at FAMU in Prague through a special mobility program for Ukrainian students, where she shot her new short film Unexpressed, which was selected for the Talent Demo program at EnergaCamerimage 2024. Mariia also took part in Warsaw Next at the Warsaw IFF 2023 and Sommerfilmakademie Görlitz 2023.
Mariia is currently working on her new short film PLOUŽÁK, which has been selected for the Linz Talent Academy 2025-2026 programme and FilmBridge Ukraine programme at Wajda Film School 2025-2026.
