Oscar Winner David Dinerstein Boards ‘Room Of The Absolute’ As EP; Award-Winning Doc Creates Portrait Of Ukrainian Artist Alla Hurenko

EXCLUSIVE: Academy Award winner David Dinerstein has signed on to executive produce Room of the Absolute as the award-winning short documentary ramps up its Oscar campaign.

The film directed by Natalie Shirinian and Elizabeth Baudouin fashions “an intimate, diaristic portrait of Ukrainian painter Alla Hurenko, professionally known as Pazza Pennello, who documented three years of her daily life under war entirely on an iPhone 14 while being directed remotely by her friends Shirinian and Baudouin from the United States.”

PGA-nominated producer Christine Beebe (Hal, Felix Austria!) has also joined Room of the Absolute as executive producer. The film has won recognition at the Provincetown International Film Festival and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival and earned Best Documentary Short nominations at the Woodstock and Mill Valley film festivals.

“Rather than approaching the war [in Ukraine] through frontlines or geopolitical analysis, the 18-minute film experiences it through the interior life of an artist and the extraordinary creative resilience required to preserve identity, purpose and a connection to home while living under constant attack,” notes a news release. “Hurenko became both the film’s subject and cinematographer, capturing the intimate rhythms of her own life – painting in her studio, living alongside her mother and grandmother, experiencing air raids and attacks, traveling outside Ukraine, confronting the psychological and physical toll of prolonged war, and ultimately continuing to create.”

Dinerstein won his Oscar in 2022 for producing Summer of Soul, the documentary directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson. He served as an executive producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, director Evgeny Afineevsky’s film about the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine that ousted a pro-Kremlin president.

“Room of the Absolute offers an extraordinarily intimate perspective on Ukraine through the life and work of one artist,” Dinerstein observed. “Alla’s determination to continue creating while her country and sense of home are under constant attack is deeply moving. This film is a true testament to human resilience and creation in the midst of war and destruction. Having been part of the producing team on Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, I was particularly struck by the film’s deeply personal perspective and am proud to champion Natalie and Elizabeth’s vision of bringing Alla’s story to a wider audience.”

Directors Natalie Shirinian and Elizabeth Baudouin are co-founders of Not All Films. The filmmaking couple produced Alok, the 2024 award-winning short documentary directed by Alex Hedison and executive produced by Jodie Foster.

In a statement, Shirinian and Baudouin said of Dinerstein, “David understands both the power of documentary storytelling and the profound importance of continuing to tell stories from women, artists and Ukraine. Having him join Room of the Absolute at this moment means so much to us. This film began as an intimate collaboration between three friends across continents, and our hope now is to bring Alla’s story, her art and her extraordinary resilience to the widest audience possible.”

From her studio in Kyiv, Hurenko commented, “Ukraine is still living through this war, and so am I. But I continue to believe in the power of art to keep us human, to preserve what is happening, and to remind us that even in the darkest times, we can still create, love and hope. What we created together has traveled so much further than I ever imagined, and knowing that people are not only seeing our film, but feeling my story and connecting with it, means more to me than I can put into words.”

Room of the Absolute is edited by Jocelyne Chaput (Fire of Love, Time and Water). In addition to the festivals noted above, the documentary short has screened at Mountainfilm, DC/DOX, HollyShorts, Hamptons International Film Festival, Odense International Film Festival, Rhode Island International Film Festival, and more.