hello, selâm, привіт.
my name is Alem.
I’m a documentary director, transdisciplinary artist and storyteller working across film, animation, activism, and performance to reclaim memory, resist erasure, and imagine new worlds.
2025 short doc film
“In the aftermath of Russia’s occupation, a collective of young Ukrainian artists travels through liberated towns, transforming ruins into stages of folklore and resistance...” Read more →
The Vertep
hatırdan soñ toprak yatıraq // за пам’яттю лежить земля //beyond memory lies the land
experimental animation
This piece is about memory, land, culture, and how they don’t end, but shift, change shape, continue. Beyond memory lies the land. Beyond the land, the memory persists. For some of us, that is all that remains—and all that must continue. Read more →
1000 + sirens later
performance + fixed playback
“Feb 24”
A live performance confronting the morning of Russia’s full-scale invasion through memory, active questioning, and the shared act of unpacking.
“1000+”
A meditative ritual transforming the trauma of Kyiv’s 1000th air raid siren into sound, reflection, and resilience.
special military operation: washing machine
art installation & public protest
A satirical protest staged outside the russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Orthodox Christmas, 2023. “Special Operation: Washing Machine” mocked russia’s looting of Ukrainian homes and reframed the kremlin’s propaganda phrase into a symbol of absurdity, irony, and resistance… Read more →
co-founding The Kyiv Independent
The Kyiv Independent is Ukraine’s fastest-growing English-language media outlet, created in November 2021, just three months before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Kyiv Independent was born out of a fight for freedom of speech. It was co-founded by a group of journalists who were fired from the Kyiv Post, then a prominent newspaper, as the owner attempted to take the newsroom under control and end its critical coverage of Ukrainian authorities.
Instead of giving up, the fired team founded a new media outlet to carry on the torch…
“We have a very definite revolutionary task to perform and are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle before us.”
— Combahee River Collective