Between Heaven and Earth

Frank Van den Engel
In 1997 Frank van den Engel started independent documentary production company Zeppers Film & TV as executive producer. He produced almost two hundred films, for theatre and television. Some of these have been awarded at prestigious festivals around the world: Andre Hazes – she believes in me (John Appel, Opening Film IDFA 1999), Dans, Grozny Dans (Jos de Putter, 2002), Voices of Bam (Aliona van der Horst, Grand Jury Award Tribeca 2006), Stranger in Paradise (Guido Hendrikx, Opening Film IDFA 2016) and Love is Potatoes (Aliona van der Horst, Golden Calf 2018). Nowadays he combines production work with the development and realization of his own film projects, and with the coaching of first-time directors. His debut Normaal – I always come back was theatrically released in 2002. Between Heaven and Earth was released in the cinema in 2007. His 2009 documentary about Dutch photographer Gerard Fieret: Photo & Copyright by G.P. Fieret was nominated for Best Dutch Documentary at the Netherlands Film Festival.

Masja Novikova
Masha Novikova was born in 1956 in Moscow, USSR. She studied pedagogy at the University of Moscow. And later worked as a teacher Russian language and literature. In Kazachstan she worked as a director-assistant in a German drama theater. Short before the fall of the Berlin Wall she came to the Netherlands, since then she has been living and working in Amsterdam. First Masha Novikova worked as interpretot and as a teacher Russian. She also worked as a guide in the 'Szar Peter House' in Zaandam. Later Masha started to work as an executive producer for Dutch television. At the same time she studied by Stefan Mayakowski at the 'Kunstweb' camera, script writing and filmdirection. Since the year 2000 she also started to film herself, she worked with mini-dv as the second film photographer for several documentaries. In 2005 she directed her first film 'Fallen Engel', documentary about traffic in East -European women who were brought to the Netherland to work as prostitues. Before making 'Three Comrades' Masha Novikova did some earlier work in Chechnya for documentary by Leo de Boer entitled 'Train to Grozny'. That was in April 2000, just after Grozny's total destruction. Driven by a feeling of shame about her own country, she has felt very much involved with the Chechnyan war ever since. In 2002 Masha Novikova did some shooting in Grozny for Jos de Putter's film 'Dance Grozny Dance'.In addition, she did several film reports on Chechnya. She also worked in 2003 with Amnesty International on a film about Lidya Yusupova, who won the Martin Ennals prize in Geneve.