Sofiya “Sophia” Kornienko (aka “nienko”)
Film Director • Cartoonist • Visual Journalist
Film director, comics journalist, and MFA Visual Narrative candidate working at the intersection of hand-drawn storytelling, documentary practice, and AI-assisted cinema.
Runway Ambassador. Profile on Diffuse: https://diffuse.runway.com/nienko
Boston, MA
CREATIVE & TECHNICAL SKILLS:
Art and Technology: 2D animation, motion design, animation principles, video editing, screenwriting, storyboarding, prompt engineering, illustration, graphic design.
AI-assisted cinema workflows: Runway, Higgsfield, Seedance 2 and 2.5, Midjourney, Nano Banana 2, ElevenLabs, Suno; experienced in prompt-based visual development, character/style consistency, animatics, image-to-video workflows, and hybrid hand-drawn/AI pipelines.
Proficient in Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe InDesign.
Journalism: Extensive experience in research, interviewing, documentary storytelling, analytical writing, and multilingual reporting in English, Russian, Dutch, Spanish, and French.
FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTED)
Toga Virilis — Director, screenwriter. Feature film in development. Visual development and pre-production proof of concept completed (including a 3:33 minute concept trailer); final production methods and casting in development. Treatment 2026 registered with the WGA and U.S. Copyright Office, currently writing the full feature screenplay.
Logline: When trans college freshman Harper feels alienated by college life, his personal AI, Martius, builds him an escape into Ancient Rome, where masculinity seems simpler, until the fantasy begins to collide with an unexpected relationship in the real world.
The project combines my original character drawings with cinematic AI-assisted production, historical research and authored editing.
The Green Card — Director, animated short, 8:32, 2026. Completed. Created in collaboration with Runway. A dark urban fairy tale about a transfemme immigrant in New York who becomes invisible after losing their Green Card.
Animated Diaries of War: Coffee — Director, animated short film, 5:10, 2023. Based on an interview with a Ukrainian refugee who survived the first weeks of the war in her native city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, with original audio. Screened at IDFF Artdocfest/Riga, Boston Film Festival, Animaze Montreal, Tokyo International Short Film Festival, Runway TV and others; multiple awards.
Earlier film/documentary work:
Producer, director, screenwriter on short films and documentaries in Russia and the Netherlands, including Kartinny Vopros/The Paintings Issue, Rene, The Eternal Second, Poslednyaya Skazka/The Last Fairy-Tale.
COMICS (SELECTED)
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLACK HOLE — comics journalism book, in progress, 2026 – 27
Seven first-person stories based on interviews with trans teenagers living in Russia; currently in production as an MFA thesis project at Boston University.
FREE TO BROWSE: The Internet as a Space of Survival for Trans Teens — and What Happens When That Space Disappears. A graphic nonfiction project combining memoir and comics journalism: first-person accounts by trans teens. Excerpt published as Editor’s Pick in Solstice Literary Magazine, Summer Issue 2026.
Love of the Mind. A satirical take on the most erotic part of Plato’s Symposium. This short graphic piece is both an ode to érōs and to those of us who prefer to channel that force into all sorts of gloriously nerdy pursuits. Self-Published and distributed at Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) in December 2025 as part of BU MFA in Visual Narrative.
We Lived In Mariupol. A completed short comic based on an interview with a refugee from Mariupol. Published in the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Visual Storytelling & Comic Arts Anthology 2024.
WORK EXPERIENCE
2020 – present
Founder / Animation Director, nienko comics & animation
Independent animated shorts, comics journalism, AI-assisted animation, visual storytelling, and hybrid hand-drawn/AI production workflows.
nienko.com
2025
Teaching Assistant, Software Lab, Graphic Design, College of Fine Arts, Boston University. Supported students working with creative software, visual communication, and digital production.
2005 – 2024
Journalist, Motion Designer, Radio Documentary Maker — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Reported, wrote, researched, produced, and directed journalistic audio/video features for RFE/RL’s Russian Service in Russian, English, and Dutch. Later work included motion design, video direction, and animated graphics. Covered culture, politics, society, human rights, and Eastern Europe from the Netherlands/Benelux and the U.S.
Earlier journalism and media work:
Contributed to Dutch and international media including NPO Radio 1, NRC Handelsblad, EenVandaag, StudioMAX Live, Andere Ogen, Radio Netherlands/Wereldomroep, Time Out Amsterdam, The St. Petersburg Times, Transitions Online, and United Nations Wire.
EDUCATION (degrees)
09.2025 – now
graduate student, MFA in Visual Narrative, College of Fine Arts, Boston University, Boston, MA (expected year of graduation: 2027)
09.2004 – 02.2006
Dual Professional MA degree in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image, Department of Media and Culture, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
09.1996 – 06.2002
MA degree cum laude in English Linguistics and Interpreting (with a minor in Spanish) at St.Petersburg State University, Faculty of Linguistics. St. Petersburg, Russia
EDUCATION (certificates and credentials)
03.2024 – 05.2025
Visual Storytelling & Comic Arts certificate program at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA, USA
07.2020 – 09.2021
intensive training in motion design, including fundamental principles of design for motion and (character) animation, mastering Adobe After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator, finishing a wide spectrum of student projects (artboards and short 2D animations), School of Motion
1999
Institute on Political Journalism (Economics for Journalists, Media Ethics), The Fund for American Studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
SELECTED RECENT EXHIBITIONS & PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS
• 2026 – 2027 Art@Sloane exhibition — Metcalf Trustee Center’s Portrait Gallery, One Silber Way, Boston, MA (Spring – Fall 2026) — painting “Afterwards”, oil on canvas, 24” x 36” or 61 x 91 cm
• Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) — MFA in Visual Narrative table, Boston, MA (Dec 6 – 7, 2025) — selected comic books and prints
• As Drawn from Life: Visual Memoirs in Comic Form — Lyceum Gallery, The Derryfield School, Manchester, NH (Sep – Oct 2025) — selected comic books and prints
• Public reading — Boston Public Library, National Cartoonists Society Conference programming, Boston, MA (Aug 14, 2025) — comics journalism project Free to Browse
SELECTED RECENT SCREENINGS (ANIMATED DIARIES OF WAR: COFFEE)
• Animaze: Montreal International Animation Film Festival — Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Cinema, Montreal, Canada (Sep 18, 2023).
• 39th Boston Film Festival — virtual screening (Sep 22–30, 2023).
• CUT International Short Film Festival — Levoy Theater, Millville, NJ, USA (Sep 23, 2023).
• IDFF Artdocfest/Riga — Zuzeum, Riga, Latvia (Mar 3, 2024).
RECENT AWARDS & RECOGNITION (SELECTED)
Nominee • OMNI International AI Film Festival 2026 (The Green Card)
Best Documentary Animation • Bridge Fest 2023 (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
Best Animation • CUT International Short Film Festival 2023 (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
Honorable Mention • Los Angeles Animation Festival 2024 (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
Finalist • DOC LA, Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival 2023 (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
Official Selection (out-of-competition screening) • IDFF Artdocfest/Riga (2024) (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
Official Selection • 39th Boston Film Festival (2023) (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
Official Selection • Animaze: Montreal International Animation Film Festival (2023) (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
Selected for programming • Runway TV (Animated Diaries of War: Coffee)
More awards listed at https://nienko.com/coffee