Everything Needs to Live portrays the unusual daily life of Anna Kurkurina, a charismatic athlete, ‘the strongest woman in the world’, an animal activist and an out lesbian. At an early age, Anna already proved to have a unique bond with animals. She taught biology at school, worked at the local zoo where she made friends with a lion, helped to set up animal shelters, and tried to find new homes for dozens of stray animals. At the age of forty, she decided to pursue a career as a powerlifter and soon made it to the top by becoming a triple world champion. She also started to work as a coach of young people with disabilities. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Anna has been using the power of her popularity as an athlete and a social media influencer to help injured and abandoned animals, following her motto — Whoever saves one life saves the whole world.
Content warning: depiction of war
Tetiana Dorodnitsyna is a film director, editor and visual artist. She graduated from the directing department at the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University. She is the director of the short films Wolves (2023) and Who Is Katya? (2019). She has worked for television channels, film production companies, and the Kyivtelefilm film studio. She is the editor of the feature documentaries Roses. Film-Cabaret (2021) by Irena Stetsenko and Askania Reserve (2019) by Andrii Lytvynenko.
Andrii Lytvynenko is a film director and producer. He graduated from the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University and the Documentary Studio at the Wajda School in Poland. He is the director of Fantastic Ukrainians. Fine Art (2020), a part of a documentary series, and the feature documentary Askania Reserve (2019), which received the Best Film Award at the Docudays UA festival and the Special Jury Prize at the Pelicam Film Festival. He is also the co-author and one of the co-directors of Euromaidan. Rough Cut (2014), which won a Special Mention at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. He was the Ukrainian producer and one of the authors of the idea for The Trial: The State of Russia vs Oleg Sentsov (2017) by Askold Kurov, and the author of the idea for the documentary almanac Beyond the Euros (2012). For the film Where is the Dog Buried? (2020), he received a scholarship from the President of Ukraine.
