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.
Netherlands