Studio — Third Party Films

Founder

Behind the camera.

Founder · Director

Maxim Pozdorovkin · Director · Writer · New York

Maxim Pozdorovkin

Award-winning director and writer based in New York. Most recently wrote and directed The Conspiracy, an animated feature charting the history of conspiracy theories — produced by Story Syndicate, starring Liev Schreiber, Lake Bell, Ben Shenkman, and Jason Alexander.

Earlier work includes The Truth About Killer Robots (HBO Max, TIFF 2018 — called "a terrifying work of science nonfiction"), Our New President (Sundance 2018 Special Jury Award — assembled entirely from Russian propaganda covering the Trump presidency), Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (Emmy winner), The Notorious Mr. Bout (Sundance 2014), and Clinica de Migrantes (HBO Max).

Holds a PhD from Harvard for a dissertation on early Soviet propaganda; a frequent media commentator on Russian politics. Also hosts the Beautiful Minds interview series at Harvard.

Sundance · Special Jury · 2013, 2018 Emmy Winner Story Syndicate · HBO Max · BBC · TIFF Russian Politics Commentator Brooklyn · Worldwide

The Team

Editors. Cinematographers. Producers. Composers.

Joe Bender

DP · Producer

Award-winning producer and DP. Recently produced the animated feature The Conspiracy; lensed Persona (CNN Films), shot and produced The Truth About Killer Robots (HBO), and filmed The Candidates. Producer on the Sundance award-winning Our New President. DOC NYC 40 under 40 (2018). Other DP work for Netflix, HBO, National Geographic, PBS. PhD, Harvard.

Matvey Kulakov

Editor · Composer

Award-winning editor and composer. His first feature, Our New President, premiered at Sundance 2018 and won a Special Jury Award for Editing. As a member of The Presidential Band, he scored both Our New President and The Truth About Killer Robots (TIFF 2018).

Iari Varriale

Editor · Cinematographer

Brooklyn-based editor and cinematographer drawn to the poetic potential of science. Work has appeared on Netflix and at DOC NYC and True/False; commercial clients include Alibaba and Decathlon. 2020–21 UnionDocs Fellow. MSc Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pisa; MA Documentary Film, Tallinn.

Jenny Lim

Producer

Award-winning filmmaker and producer based in New York City. Her first short, The Dance, screened at Tribeca while she was in high school. BA, summa cum laude, Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard. Has worked with Third Party on documentary features, shorts, and series.

Jonathan Rapoport

Producer · Archival Researcher

Writer and producer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Onion, Slate, and on NPR, PBS, Showtime, and HBO. 2009 Writing Fellow at The Onion; 2012 Hertog Fellow for the New Yorker. Producer on the Oscar-nominated documentary short Knife Skills. MFA, Columbia.

Jeanne Applegate

Editor

Edited Third Party's HBO short Clínica de Migrantes and the Pussy Riot music video I Can't Breathe. Editor on Tim Sutton's Dark Night (Sundance 2016); additional editor on Joshua Z. Weinstein's Menashe (Sundance 2017) and Sebastián Silva's Nasty Baby (Sundance 2015).

Dasha Bough

Animator

Brooklyn-based animator working in charcoal, stop motion, digital hand-drawn, and sand animation. Lead storyboard artist on the animated opening of Emmy-nominated Mrs. America (Hulu). Classically trained at the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts; Slavic and Visual Studies, Harvard College.

Producers · Fixers · Crews

Worldwide

Plus a network of producers, fixers, archival researchers, and crews we work with around the world — with deep specialty in the post-Soviet space. Need a team for a shoot? Get in touch.

The Studio.

Behind the camera.

Maxim Pozdorovkin

Editors. Cinematographers. Producers. Composers.

On Maxim & the films ·