Anastasia
Starova

Writer
Filmmaker

Born and raised in a small, provincial town in post-soviet Ukraine, I grew up in cultural and geographical isolation and saw fiction as a means of escape: literature and cinema allowed me to live lives I couldn’t dream of, meet fascinating people, experience foreign cultures, and visit places like Paris, New York, London, Prague.

In my early twenties, I started traveling around the world. The more I discovered, the more I wanted to capture, remember, and share. The humour, heartbreaks, and the beautiful human connections I had found on the way are the inspiration for the stories I tell now.

Today, I live and work in Canada. When I am unable to travel and collect new experiences, I turn to books, films, and TV series for my dose of adventure.

In development

Mila
novel

Sun Bunnies
short story collection

The Last Snow
feature, drama

Foreign
pilot, dramedy

I write prose and screenplays for film and TV. I am interested in exploring female-centric narratives rooted in intergenerational family dynamics, cultural identity, and immigration and in highlighting connections between humans, cultures, memory, environment, and art.

I am also interested in creative approaches to communicate climate science and in climate change adaptation narratives.

I work in the genres of literary fiction, dramedy, drama, and magical realism.

Past works

Visitor (2015)
short drama, sci-fi
Director

Psychedelic Soldiers (2015)
short documentary
Producer

Dreams (2014)
short drama
Director

The Portrait (2013)
short drama
Writer, Director

In 2013, I made my filmmaking debut with a short drama The Portrait that was filmed guerilla-style in Odesa and premiered at the 66th Cannes Film Festival. The film’s cast consists almost entirely of non-actors – a group of emerging Ukrainian artists who at the time were students of the Grekov Odesa Art School – and features original artworks.

After graduating with a BA in Cinema Studies from the New Sorbonne University in Paris in 2014, I moved to Canada. In 2015, I graduated with high honors from Sheridan College where I majored in producing and directing for film and television and produced an acclaimed short documentary Psychedelic Soldiers.

For the past five years, I have been working in production of visual effects for film and television. My feature film and TV credits include Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and John Logan’s Penny Dreadful among others. In 2017, I became a member of the Producer’s Guild of America.

I can be reached at anastarova@gmail.com.

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