Irina Sosnovaya

Irina Sosnovaya (; is an international film producer.

Biography Early life Sosnovaya was born in Almaty. She graduated from the Faculty of Applied Political Science at the Higher School of Economics in 2008. During her first year, she began interning at the NTV network with the program “The Country and the World” and then accepted a position as producer and editor-in-chief of the show “Today” with Alexey Pivovarov at NTV, where she worked until 2011.

Sosnovaya's first Russian series as producer and showrunner was Gold Diggers. This was the first Russian series acquired by Amazon for their line of “Exclusives and Originals”. It was also acquired by Channel 4 and purchased by streaming services in thirteen countries.

She then produced the series Storm, which received more than ten awards in Russia and was a prize-winning entry at the New York Film Awards in 2020.

While working on A Good Man, a series about the most notorious maniac in Russia who murdered 84 women, Sosnovaya conducted an hours-long interview with serial killer Mikhail Popkov. The material from that interview served as the basis for the screenplay. The series was launched on Start in August 2020 and was selected to participate in Serial Killer, the international film and TV festival held in Brno, Czech Republic, where it was awarded Best Central and Eastern European Series.

Sosnovaya also took part as a speaker at the February 2021 TEDx conference.

In April 2021, Esquire magazine named Sosnovaya one of the ten most promising young Russian filmmakers.

In 2021, she produced Nataliya Meshchaninova’s series Alyssa, which received awards at the New Season festival and the award for “creative expression” at the Pilot television festival.

That same year she produced the short film “Get Ready. Off to the Feast”, which shed light on the problem of female genital mutilation in Russia. The film received awards at international film festivals and was also selected to compete at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

She took part in producing the TV series Container.

In 2020 she served as a jury member for the International Emmy Awards as well as a jury member for series pitches at the Sochi Open Russian Film Festival and the Moscow International Film Festival.

In 2023, Sosnovaya was awarded a special prize for Best Showrunner (for the series Gold Diggers, Mediator and Storm, Alyssa, The Duel Club, and Living Life) at the Fifth Annual Pilot television festival.

In 2024 Sosnovaya became the general producer of UNICO STUDIO (Kazakhstan).

Awards and nominations Year Award Nomination Result Source2020 Serial Killer (festival) Winners of The Best CEE Series 2020 APKIT Award «Best TV series (5 — 24 episodes)» for the series «STORM» 2023 Festival Pilot Best Showrunner