Hi - I’m Slava, a documentary and narrative filmmaker with 20 years of experience making breakthrough creative content. I started as an independent filmmaker and editor, earned an MFA in Cinema, and fell into advertising almost by accident - a temporary job as an internal editor at Credit Karma that turned into an incredible 12+ year career in advertising. Along the way, I played many roles - copywriter, broadcast producer, creative strategist, Senior Executive Producer. Each role stretched my skill set in different directions, and each one sharpened the same instinct: to tell a great story that’s rooted in real human insight.

That through line has been with me my entire career, as well as my love for creative collaboration, and the actual making of things. It’s what I brought to Locked Out, a feature length documentary about housing inequality where I served as Creative Director and Executive Producer. And it’s what I bring every day to Cool Dad Coffee, a mission-driven coffee brand I started with two friends to redefine modern fatherhood and eschew old tropes of toxic masculinity. There, I’m the Creative Director, content creator, strategist, and marketer all-in-one, writing, directing, and producing all of our video content. In the process, I’ve become an expert in generative AI production tools, using them to write, score, and edit short films at a fraction of the time and cost of a traditional shoot.

Outside of work, I like to paint, design old school cyanotype t-shirts, and fight for economic and social justice, civil rights, and the environment. When the world is on fire, being neutral is not an option. I make no apologies for that.

If there’s a project you’d like to collaborate on, I’d love to hear from you -S