Zoya Laktionova was born in Mariupol, in a working class family in 1984. She first appeared in the world of documentary cinema as a character in the film "Ma" (10’) by Maria Stoyanova in 2017, and a year later made her first short doc "Diorama" (12’ https://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/film/20182188/diorama) about the mined sea at the Mariupol area. The film won an award in the MyStreetFilms category at the “86” festival (Ukraine) in 2018, has participated in numerous European film festivals (DOK Leipzig, Ji.Hlava etc), and was released in cinemas in Ukraine in 2019. In 2021, Zoya premiered her new short "Territory of Empty Windows" (10’) at Docudays UA IDFF. Zoya now lives in Kyiv and works as an independent documentary filmmaker. She works with themes of war, memory and personal stories.