Marysia Nikitiuk
Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Kyiv, Ukraine]
Marysia Nikitiuk (Ukranian: Марися Нікітюк; born in 1986; Kyiv) is a Ukrainian film director, screenwriter and fiction writer. She wrote and directed When the Trees Fall (2018) and co-wrote Homeward (2019), both of which have drawn recognition as among the best Ukrainian films. Nikitiuk also directed Lucky Girl (2021) and published a collection of short fiction, The Abyss (2016), which won the Oles Ulianenko International Literary Prize.
Nikitiuk was born in 1986. She attended Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv's Institute of Journalism, graduating in 2007. She then earned a master's degree in theater studies at Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University, focusing on Japanese theater.