Polina Struzhkova

Sketches for a Biography:

I was born into a good family. My mother is a bookkeeper, my father is a geologist. I was sent to pre-school when I was 2. At the age of 3 I was transferred to an advanced group because I had talked the ears off of all my teachers. When I was 5 I made the decision myself to enter school. My whole life I have been the youngest, the smallest and the smartest.

When I was 13 I began going to the Moscow International Cinema School and I fell in love — with that school. I went there after leaving a prestigious “center of education.” I spent the next 3 years in bliss, believing that life would be like this forever, that I would never be in over my head.

I entered Oleg Kudryashov's class in the directing department of GITIS at the age of 16. I prepared scenes from the works of Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and contemporary writers.

I perform in my class's productions of “Bullfinches” and “Lovingly, But...”

I love:
Anton Chekhov, Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Antoine de St. Exupery, Truman Capote;
Pyotr Fomenko, Sergei Zhenovach, Eimuntas Nekrosius;
Ingmar Bergman, Milos Forman, Jim Jarmusch, Andrei Konchalovsky, Federico Fellini, Wim Wenders, Andrzej Wajda;
But most of all I love theatre for its candor.

I want to:
Direct shows;
Makes films;
Act in theatre and film;
Write stories;
Work with and for children;
And I want to be great.