Lyudmila Shamanova

Lyudmila Shamanova was born in the town of Buguruslan in Orenburg Region, Russia. She graduated from the Orenburg State University with a degree in journalism. She then completed a postgraduate course at the Institute for Advanced Training for Television and Radio Broadcasting Workers and finished her PhD thesis. After that, Lyudmila obtained a degree in drama at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Her career in journalism started at a regional TV channel in Orenburg, where she worked as a news reporter, editor, and presenter. As for documentary filmmaking, Lyudmila made her first steps while working as a reporter and screenwriter with the NTV channel. 

Lyudmila joined RT Documentary in 2009. At RTD, she’s worked on dozens of projects, including award-winning pieces like ‘She is My Son’ (Bronze World Medal at the 2017 New York Festivals World’s Best TV & Films), ‘Project Duterte’ (1st at Telly Awards 2017), ‘Lady cops of Afghanistan’(Human Rights Press Award), and ‘Dying alone’(Gold Medal in the Human Concerns category at the New York Festivals 2020 TV & Film Awards).

“Together with my colleagues, we implement creative ideas that sometimes seem crazy or impossible to implement, and this is what I like most about documentary filmmaking. I really enjoy the process of looking for compelling stories and interesting protagonists”.