Creating Impactful Stories That Matter

This to confirm that Mr. Sergiy Pudich was contracted as a consultant by the Ukraine Office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) during my term as the Chief of IOM Mission in Ukraine. Mr. Pudich was selected through a competitive selection process as a consultant filmmaker in charge of creating a documentary movie under one of the IOM projects, funded by the European Union, in the field of migration, return and human rights of migrants.

The movie was shot in different locations in Ukraine, including in government facilities for the handling of irregular migrants, and was based on interviews of government authorities such as Border Guards and Immigration, migrants, social workers and local inhabitants. The documentary, presented in 2017, was successfully accepted by the European Union and the Ukrainian Government counterparts, who have used it as communication and visibility material, as well as training tool for Government authorities in charge of return and readmission of migrants. The movie was also shown in Ukrainian universities to sensitize students on irregular migration and return.

Mr. Pudich was responsible for all parts of movie production: creating the storyline, conceiving the questionnaires for interviews, coordinating the pre-production, production, and post-production of the documentary, including filming and editing. Mr. Pudich worked closely with the IOM team during the production process, adapting questionnaire, storyboard, and editing, to meet IOM's requirements. Besides the technical capacities to create the film, Mr. Pudich showed flexibility to accommodate different requests not only of the IOM but also of the Ukrainian Government counterparts involved as final beneficiaries. Mr. Pudich demonstrated a proper attitude to handling highly sensitive themes while interviewing migrants and Government counterparts.

The IOM Mission and I personally were highly satisfied with the results of Mr. Pudich's work and the outcome. I wish Mr. Pudich best of luck for his future career and can recommend him without hesitation for similar activities, either as a filmmaker or a producer of documentary movies.

 Working with Sergiy Pudich and his Company EasyLiving Films is a professional and personal delight. His experience, knowledge, creativity and passion helped me and us a lot to make our projects a real success story. I am the Founder and CEO of European Leadership & Debate Academy, co-organized with Federal Foreign Office of Germany. Together with Sergiy Pudich we organized and realized a lot of well recognizable academies, seminars and films in Eastern Europe since 2014.