The Producers

Olya Schechter - Director

Olya Schechter, a New York-based filmmaker, studied politics and environmental studies at New York University. After an internship at Newsweek she entered a documentary program at New York Film Academy. While studying she became fascinated with the Russian - United States relationships and the Ukrainian crisis. As a result she spent three years working on her first feature documentary on the front lines in Eastern Ukraine.

Making The Film

I was compelled to make A Sniper’s War after I met Deki during my trip to the Donetsk People’s Republic. I was immediately intrigued by his story and curious why he left Serbia to join the pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine. At first he was convinced that I was an American spy and it took a long time to gain his trust in order to get the access to tell the story. For over two years I traveled back and forth between New York and the Donetsk People’s Republic. Living at the military base with the rebels I eventually gained access to the front lines. I worked with one cinematographer or shot by myself. My goal was to blend in with the soldiers in order to capture the reality as is. Making this film has been a challenging exercise in objectivity. I realized that the only way to make this film politically neutral is to tell the story from Deki’s point of view. The more time I spent with him the more I wondered: is he a soldier or a killer? I tried to capture that duality in every scene. Eventually, I began to see him as a product of historic events that have shaped his world views - very different from mine.