A Score in Absence (2026)
Surreal to finally release a film that’s been over four years in the making. This documentary is a collaboration with the incredible @khrystyna.mykhailichenko , who prepares to play for international stages shortly after being displaced by Russian invasion for the second time in her life. Her experience is a first hand look at the role of culture and classical music during war.
Last week the premiere sold out Bethesda Row Landmark theater with @bethesdabup
It is featured on @visionsdureel Industry Market until July 26th
The next screening will be held at @bigapplefilmfestival at Village East Cinemas, NYC
Directed/Shot/Edited by @maxrkv
Performances by @khrystyna.mykhailichenko , Sasha Mykhailichenko, @shapranfazekaspianoduo
Associate Editor @anna_balkanna
Colorist/Post Coordinator @griffin_bozwell
Audio Engineer @space.and.joy.music
Additional Score @szesztaydavid
Key Art by Marites Algones
Additional Cinematography @josephus.maximus@bertrand.normand.52@joergoninsta
Developed with support of @humanitiesdc and @dcdoxfest
Thank you to everyone who has helped make it possible. We can’t wait to keep showing this work and continuing the conversation about Ukraine’s cultural front.
My VHS film “Hindsight” is finally coming online. After a year of local, national, and international festival screenings, it will be available to watch on @nobudge starting Thursday, April 3rd. Grateful for everyone who has watched, supported, and been part of this journey so far.
A totem of lost signal and media decay.
Fragments of love stories from cinema’s collective memory (Casablanca, Romeo + Juliet, Moonrise Kingdom) disintegrate and emerge through static noise. How much distortion does it take before an emotion disappears completely? When cinema breaks down into pure transmission, does it become meaningless or does it reveal how deeply it has shaped us?
multichannel installation by @maxrkv
using custom circuit bending mixer by @arhitektorov
music by @rubyhaunt
Snapshots from my time reporting around Harlem’s public housing complexes where police surveillance is quietly expanding, and with young people in after-school boxing programs focused on mentorship and violence interruption.
Both are part of the same conversation about community safety.
The story is now published with @citylimitsnews
“She believed public housing communities should be able to run themselves.”
East Harlem renamed a street for Ethel Battle Velez, a community leader who spent four decades advocating for public housing tenants. Her daughter Janet now stands among neighbors grappling with what comes next as NYCHA increasingly turns to private management, a shift residents worry overlooks their voices in Ethel’s absence.
Photos and reporting for Columbia News Service.
memory as a process of transmission and distortion…
“Home, Interrupted”
Multichannel installation at ROOTS exhibition
on display at ADA Art Gallery in Washington D.C.
Snapshots from my first event story at @columbiajournalism during NYFW
Marcus Meets Malcolm’s Open Streets fashion show turns West 120th Street into a living archive of Harlem’s creativity, heritage, and ongoing transformation
@mmmfashionshow
My latest installation “Home, Interrupted” was on view in DuPont’s ADA Art Gallery for the month of September as a part of ROOTS - our community art exhibition curated and produced by the incredible @haileyhartiganstudios
My work focuses on the fragility of remembering home after separation. The multichannel installation cycled through distorted archives - my VHS home footage from Kyiv and Ukrainian television recordings from the 90s and early 2000s - exploring how we hold on to our roots once memory itself begins to fade.
A massive thank you to the team and to all who visited us!
