The producer of the films Demons and Bad Roads — on how Kristi Films works in festival cinema, international co-productions, production services and vertical dramas for mobile devices.
The Locarno Film Festival has announced the competition lineup for its 79th edition. The program includes Concorso Internazionale (its main competition), Concorso Cineasti del Presente (the section of first and second feature films by emerging directors), and Pardi di Domani (short and medium length). 15 films will compete this year, all are world premieres, 9 of them are directorial debuts. Demons by Natalka Vorozhbyt, produced by Kristi Films. The selection of the film takes place against the background of the expansion of the company beyond festival cinema: into genre cinema, international production services and vertical dramas for the mobile audience. How can one independent production company work in such different formats and production cycles without lowering standards?
This question was posed to Dmytro Minzianov, co-founder and chief producer of Kristi Films, whose work spans auteur cinema, genre feature films, international co-productions, and production services. Demons is his second picture selected in Locarno; Graduation 97 received the Youth Jury Award of the festival in 2017. His Bad Roads had the premiere at the Venice International Critics’ Week and became the official Ukrainian submission for the American Academy Awards (Oscar) in 2021, and the genre film Once Upon a Time in Ukraine received North American distribution through Samuel Goldwyn Films. Minzianov also produced Satisfaction, a co-production USA–Ukraine–Greece–Italy, the premiere of which took place at SXSW. Now Kristi Films works in Ukraine, Greece and the USA, where Minzianov develops vertical dramas with a team of experienced Ukrainian production specialists.
Dmytro, you first brought Kristi Films to Locarno with the short film Graduation 97, which received the Youth Jury Award ten years ago. Now you return with the feature-length international co-production Demons. What changed in your work as a producer between these two films?
Back then, I was mostly working on big TV shows. Film producing was more of a passionate side project for me, and I didn’t really look at it as a proper business model yet.
In 2016, my father, Yurii Minzianov, and I decided to start our own production company. Right around that time, my daughter Christina was born, so we named the company Kristi Films in her honor.
From day one, my team and I set out to help talented young directors bring their creative visions to life. We backed them fully at our own expense, taking care of everything from casting and location scouting to equipment and crew. Right out of the gate, our very first project made a real impact on the international festival circuit.
After that, we produced over a dozen short films. Several of them have since become classics in Ukrainian cinema, and many found success internationally, getting nominated at the European Film Academy and screening at major festivals like Brooklyn, Vukovar, Brussels Short, Leuven, Krakow, and Palm Springs.
Eventually, I secured support from Ukrainian film funds to step up into feature films. I started focusing on two parallel tracks: auteur art-house films and genre movies for broader audiences.
Within just a few years, I produced five feature films, and several of them really took off globally. Bad Roadspremiered at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Innovative Work, and it went on to become Ukraine’s official entry for the 2021 Academy Awards. Kings of Rap premiered at the Cottbus Film Festival in 2022. And The Inglorious Serfs, which was released internationally as Once Upon a Time in Ukraine, was quickly picked up by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
Most of our catalogue is now available on major platforms, including Netflix, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime Video in the US, as well as HBO in Central Europe. And now, our latest project, Demons, which we only recently managed to wrap up despite the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, is heading straight to Locarno.
For 2027 you form the slate of Kristi Films, which covers festival and genre cinema, with the participation of local film funds and European co-producers. What allows a project to get into this slate?
I look at four main things: the script, the director, the target audience, and a realistic path to financing. For a festival film, beyond a strong, original script, you need a distinct directorial voice and partners who truly understand the vision. For a genre film, you need a high-concept idea that clearly hits the mark with audiences, paired with a sensible budget that matches its commercial potential.
Working with international co-producers is never straightforward, mostly because so much of it depends on variables outside our control, like securing international fund approvals, meeting strict deadlines, aligning budgets, and getting deliverables signed off.
A project only makes it into our active slate once we can connect that creative vision with concrete funding sources, solid partners, and a realistic production timeline. Until all those pieces fall into place, it stays strictly in development.
You opened an office of Kristi Films in Greece in order to provide production services and participate in international projects in the quality of co-producer. What did this base give that could not be done, working only from Ukraine?
Greece is an incredibly attractive country for filmmakers: it offers stunning locations, sound stages, modern equipment, and fantastic acting talent. But beyond all that, Greece offers a very competitive film production incentive. The state returns about 40 percent of local spend to foreign producers, which is often the deciding factor for major studios.
For me, though, having a base there goes beyond just providing production services. It’s a great opportunity to join international projects as a co-producer and to bring top-tier Ukrainian talent on board to work on them in Greece. A large portion of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey was shot in Greece, for instance, and being involved in a project of that scale would be a massive honor for me.
On Satisfaction you helped to connect partners from the USA, Ukraine and Greece for a film which had the premiere at SXSW. What part of this cross-border work did you hold personally?
Satisfaction was our very first project in Greece. It starred Fionn Whitehead, who played the lead in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.
The film turned out to be a fantastic co-production between the US, Ukraine, and Greece. On my end, I represented both the Ukrainian and Greek sides, which gave us the opportunity to bring talented Ukrainian filmmakers onto a set with major Hollywood actors.
For me, it was a huge challenge because the budget was remarkably small, even by Ukrainian standards. But we handled it brilliantly. My years of experience stretching micro-budgets allowed us to deliver the kind of production value that other studios would have spent millions of dollars to achieve. Looking at the film’s festival run, it proves that our approach worked a hundred percent. Ukraine, where I represented Ukraine and Greece having the opportunity also to attract Ukrainian filmmakers for work over the film with Hollywood actors. For me this was a big challenge since at the project was a sufficiently small budget even by Ukrainian measures, but we excellently coped with this task since my many-year experience of work with extremely small budgets allowed to make a product of high quality, on which other studios would have spent millions of dollars and the festival path of this film proved, that everything worked one hundred percent.
Now you build the American direction of vertical dramas of Kristi Films around Ukrainian specialists who already know this format. Why did you make a bet on vertical drama exactly now?
Vertical drama already has a massive audience in both Asia and America. This type of content is expanding at an incredible speed worldwide and carries huge financial potential. The market is already worth tens of billions of dollars, with production primarily concentrated in China and the US.
Short-form series like these are in high demand across social media, with young people making up the core audience. It’s the kind of content people watch on the go. In a way, it’s modernizing the space that pulp fiction, light novels, and tabloid papers used to occupy, things people would grab for their daily commute.
Each episode is usually just one to two minutes long, and a full series runs about 60 to 70 episodes, formatted vertically so it’s easy to watch on a smartphone. Statistically, viewers end up spending anywhere from 21 to 27 dollars to watch a complete series, which is significantly more than the price of a movie ticket.
Genre trends in this space shift rapidly, so one of the main challenges is staying ahead of the curve and maintaining a fast production pace. I find the format exciting because it doesn’t demand the long months of pre-production and shooting that feature films require. You can go from initial concept to a finished product in a couple of months at most.
Coming from my background in producing short films, it’s a very natural transition. You don’t need a massive setup, just a nimble crew, a creative director, a charismatic cast, and great American locations.ted in China and the USA. Such serial content is in high demand by consumers on social media and the main audience is youth. Often such content consumes the majority of people while being on the road.
One can say that this is a replacement of light book novels and yellow press, which earlier every day bought for the road by public transport. The running time of one series is mainly 1-2 minutes and one series is about 60-70 series in vertical format, so that it would be more convenient to watch this on their smartphones. By statistics the consumer now in the end spends on viewing one such series 21-27 dollars for. This is much more than a ticket to a cinema theater. Genre trends change very quickly and here one of the main tasks is to follow the development of the trend and to have a high speed of production. Such a format is interesting for me because that does not require long months of preparation and production as with feature films. From the development of the idea to the final product goes a maximum of a couple of months. After my experience in the production of short films, this does not constitute a big labor, since to me a small filming group, a creative director, a charismatic casting and American locations are needed.
You say that this team can make qualitative vertical dramas approximately for half of the budget, which now is common on the American market. From where exactly is this economy taken?
It comes down to my personal experience from years of working with extremely tight budgets in Ukraine, which taught us how to optimize costs at every single stage of production.
The real secret is putting together the right team, bringing in the right director, and tailoring our approach to each specific project. Most producers in the US simply aren’t used to working with micro-budgets. They can’t imagine how a lean crew of ten specialists can deliver top-quality production. That’s exactly how I found my niche in the American market.
Demons come out in Ukrainian distribution on 18 March 2027, and Kristi Films expands in Europe and the USA. What one result by the end of 2027 will show you that the company went out to the next stage?
Demons is just beginning its festival journey, and I really hope that Locarno is only the start. It would be incredible if, next year, the film is chosen as Ukraine’s official submission for the Oscars and makes it onto the shortlist.
For me, that would be a real victory, one that would inspire me to push Kristi Films to new heights on the international stage.