Anastasiia Bortuali is an emerging Ukrainian filmmaker currently living between Iceland and Ukraine. With a background spanning both documentary and fiction, her work explores identity, displacement, and memory through an intimate and visually poetic approach.
She studied Film and Television Directing at the Saint Petersburg State University of Film and Television. Her studies were interrupted by Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. After fleeing her bombed hometown with her family, she eventually resettled in Iceland, where filmmaking became a way to regain her voice and process displacement.
Her debut feature documentary, Temporary Shelter, was filmed from within the refugee experience and portrays the lives of displaced Ukrainians in Iceland. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was selected for TIFF’s industry programme. Her second film, Þegar haustið hægir á sér (As Autumn Grows Quiet), is a poetic narrative focusing on ageing, care, and the quiet pressures faced by women living on the margins of society.
Alongside directing, Anastasiia has worked in production and coordination roles across international film festivals and studios in Iceland, Poland, and Ukraine. She also holds an academic background in International Relations and Diplomacy, a perspective that informs the political awareness and human depth of her filmmaking.
Her current work continues to merge documentary sensitivity with narrative storytelling, shaped by lived experience and a personal journey across borders, cultures, and states of belonging.
