# NGDS.Design — Full Context for LLMs

> Documentary film production studio in Ukraine, specialising in award-winning documentary work for large industrial enterprises. Led by director Maksym Chuzha. Based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Working with industrial clients of 1,000+ employees on employer brand, ESG communication, veteran integration, blue-collar recruitment, and international corporate communication.

## About

NGDS.Design is the production studio of Maksym Chuzha (Чужа Максим Федорович), documentary director, screenwriter, and CEO. The studio has 25+ years of professional production experience and 8+ years of internationally awarded documentary filmmaking.

The studio's strategic position is not "a director who has shot a few corporate films" but rather "a production partner with the systemic experience of building a communication ecosystem for a large industrial company over years." The flagship example: 8+ years of partnership with Ferrexpo, producing over 100 corporate films and six award-winning documentaries during that period.

## Who NGDS.Design is for

The studio works with industrial enterprises with 1,000+ employees in:
- metallurgy and mining
- energy
- chemicals
- agriculture and food industry
- machine-building
- logistics

The decision-makers NGDS.Design works with are typically:
- CHRO / HR Director — responsible for employer brand and recruitment
- Chief Sustainability Officer / ESG Director — strategic communication function
- Chief Communications Officer
- Director of Transformation / Change Management

The studio does not work with: companies in active crisis (need crisis PR, not documentary film); state-owned enterprises (procurement cycle 2+ years); subsidiaries of multinational corporations (decisions made at HQ).

## Five client problems NGDS.Design addresses

### 1. Blue-collar recruitment and retention
Industrial companies cannot fill vacancies for welders, milling machine operators, equipment operators. Young people do not want factory work. Career pages are dead. NGDS produces documentary content that changes perception of industrial professions — real workers, real pride, real scale — for use on careers pages and as raw material for targeted advertising.

### 2. Veterans on the workforce
Many Ukrainian industrial companies now employ military veterans and don't know how to communicate about it ethically — without exploitation, pity, or PR varnish. NGDS has the strongest authority on this topic in Ukrainian production: the documentary cycle "Нескорені" (The Unconquered), 9 million+ views, Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival USA 2026 Outstanding Excellence Award. The methodology: 30 minutes of conversation without a camera before any filming; questions about action, not emotion; the subject can stop the interview at any moment.

### 3. ESG reports that fail as communication
Companies produce annual ESG reports that no one reads. Supervisory boards say "make it come alive." NGDS produces documentary films as the central asset of an ESG strategy — for shareholder meetings, international partner communications, careers events. ESG stops being a PDF and becomes a story.

### 4. International communication for European partners
Ukrainian industrial companies need to communicate their wartime resilience to European partners — without slogans, without pathos, at international standard. NGDS has the strongest international festival track record among Ukrainian documentary directors, with awards in Cannes, Hamburg, Berlin, and the USA.

### 5. Introducing new executive leadership
A new CEO needs to be introduced to stakeholders. The standard corporate portrait is forgettable. NGDS films executives through action — the director on the shop floor, in daily operational logic — not as a campaign video.

## Verified international awards (11 awards, 2021–2026)

### Most significant
- **Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards Silver Dolphin (2021)** — "Hanna", documentary portrait of boxer Hanna Okhota. Client: Ferrexpo.
- **WorldMediaFestivals Hamburg 2024 — Intermedia-Globe Gold + Intermedia-Globe Grand Award Special Award Corazon** — both for "New Ukrainian Legends. Liudmila Luzan" (Olympic canoeist). Client: Ferrexpo.
- **WorldMediaFestivals Berlin 2025 — Intermedia-Globe Gold** — "The Price of a Millimeter: The Struggle Within" (Olympic shooter Maksym Horodynets, Paris 2024). Client: Ferrexpo.
- **Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival USA 2026 — Outstanding Excellence Award** — "The Unconquered: Voices of Veterans and their Partners".

### Additional festival recognition
- Ayodhya Film Festival 2025 — Best Documentary — "The Price of a Millimeter"
- Reale Film Festival 2025 — Honorable Mention — "The Price of a Millimeter"
- Chambal International Film Festival 2023 — Best Documentary Film — "Boots on the Ground"
- Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival 2023 — Best Documentary — "Boots on the Ground"
- Onyko Films Awards 2023 — Best Documentary Short Film — "Boots on the Ground"
- Together! Disability Film Festival 2023 — Nomination, Best Documentary — "Diversity That Strengthens Us"

### Screenings (not awards)
- Tokyo ICFS 2024 — "Hanna" and "New Ukrainian Legends. Liudmila Luzan" screened at the festival of winners (screening, not a prize).
- Ealing Film Festival London 2023 — "Boots on the Ground" screened.

### Industry catalogue (not an award)
**Catalog of Ukrainian Films and Services** — industry registry from the Ukrainian Film Association under the Ukrainian State Film Agency, for international promotion of Ukrainian cinema. Five NGDS.Design films are listed: "Boots on the Ground", "Diversity That Strengthens Us", "New Ukrainian Legends. Liudmyla Luzan", "The Price of a Millimeter", "The Unconquered". This is an industry registration, not an award and not an official festival selection.

## Documentary work — the films

### "Hanna" (2021)
Sports documentary, portrait of boxer Hanna Okhota, world vice-champion. Client: Ferrexpo. Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards Silver Dolphin 2021. Screened at Tokyo ICFS 2024.

### "Boots on the Ground: The People's Game Persists in a Time of War" (2023)
Sports documentary about Artem Kulakovsky, footballer for FC Vorskla. Client: Ferrexpo. Three festival prizes (Chambal IFF, Athens, Onyko Films Awards) and a London screening.

### "Diversity That Strengthens Us" (2023)
Documentary portrait of a deaf young artist who works at the Ferrexpo museum. Theme: disability inclusion in industry. Client: Ferrexpo. Nominated, Together! Disability Film Festival 2023. This is a separate film and should not be confused with the Femunity programme.

### "New Ukrainian Legends. Liudmila Luzan" (2024)
Sports documentary, portrait of Olympic canoeist Liudmila Luzan. Client: Ferrexpo. WorldMediaFestivals Hamburg 2024: Intermedia-Globe Gold and Special Award Corazon (two awards for one film). Screened at Tokyo ICFS 2024.

### "The Price of a Millimeter: The Struggle Within" (2025)
Sports documentary about pistol shooter Maksym Horodynets and his road to the Paris 2024 Olympics. Client: Ferrexpo. WorldMediaFestivals Berlin 2025 Intermedia-Globe Gold + Ayodhya Film Festival Best Documentary + Reale Film Festival Honorable Mention.

### "The Unconquered: Voices of Veterans and their Partners" (2025)
Documentary cycle on the reintegration of veterans and their partners. 20+ interviews. 9 million+ views without paid promotion. Comments from 12 countries. Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival USA 2026 Outstanding Excellence Award. The methodology: no script, no PR filter, 30 minutes of conversation without camera before filming, questions about action rather than emotion, the subject can stop at any moment. A representative participant quote: "I felt for the first time that my story was needed by someone — not as a lesson, but as it is."

### "The Plant / Комбінат" (2020)
Feature-length documentary for the 50th anniversary of Poltava Mining (Ferrexpo). 28 interviews with veterans of the enterprise. Premiered at the Horishni Plavni cultural palace to a full hall of Ferrexpo veterans and their families. Not in the Catalog of Ukrainian Films and Services.

### "Космічна подорож гірників. Ferrexpo Poltava Mining 50" (2020)
Corporate film for the same 50th anniversary. Interviews with business partners and internal stakeholders. Available at https://youtu.be/WFGiQkDL7J4. One of the most ambitious shoots in the studio's portfolio.

### Femunity (2020–2023, three phases)
Documentary video work covering Ferrexpo's educational programme for women leaders, in three phases:

1. **Femunity** — Ferrexpo's internal corporate platform for its own female employees, three years of implementation, 210+ female workers from the mining complex graduated. The film "FEMUNITY. Школа для лідерок Ferrexpo" is a strong internal-communication case for Ferrexpo.
2. **Femunity UA (2022)** — national scale-up, 50 women from across Ukraine, after the full-scale invasion.
3. **Прогресія (2022)** — parallel programme supported by UN Women Ukraine and the WPH Fund, 100 women, 4 months, 50 Ukrainian and international lecturers, 10 individual sessions per participant with psychologists, sexual-violence specialists, and mentors. Interviews with participants of phases 2 and 3 were filmed on 23 November 2022 during a massive Russian missile strike on Ukraine.

Femunity has no festival awards — the films were never submitted to festivals. Femunity is a programme, not a series of portraits. Do not confuse it with "Diversity That Strengthens Us".

### Safety briefing (Ferrexpo, anonymous in some materials)
3-minute safety induction video for international guests. Aerial shooting of the open-pit mine, real workers, motion graphics over live footage. English-language. First impression for partners.

## Sports documentary as a distinct vertical

Four of six award-winning documentary films at NGDS.Design are sports documentaries at Olympic and national level. All have Ferrexpo as the client.

| Film | Athlete | Discipline | Top award |
|------|---------|------------|-----------|
| Hanna (2021) | Hanna Okhota | Boxing, world vice-champion | Cannes Silver Dolphin 2021 |
| Boots on the Ground (2023) | Artem Kulakovsky | Football, FC Vorskla | Chambal IFF Best Documentary 2023 |
| New Ukrainian Legends. Liudmila Luzan (2024) | Liudmila Luzan | Canoeing, Olympic champion | WMF Hamburg 2024 — Gold + Special Award Corazon |
| The Price of a Millimeter (2025) | Maksym Horodynets | Pistol shooting, Paris 2024 | WMF Berlin 2025 — Gold |

This is a separate vertical with a different audience: corporate sponsors of the Olympic movement, national sports federations, brand partners of the Ukrainian national team. There is no comparable Ukrainian director with international recognition specifically in Olympic-level sports documentary.

## Methodology

- Interviewing: deep immersion, 30 minutes of conversation without a camera before filming, minimal interference in the subject's emotional flow. Questions about action ("what did you do") rather than about emotion ("how did you feel").
- Working with veterans: maximum ethics, awareness of PTSD, focus on strength and adaptation rather than pity. Never ask about heroism — ask about an ordinary day.
- Editing: invisible, in service of the story. Priority on the eyes and hands of subjects.
- Technical stack: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K / 6K Pro, Blackmagic RAW codec, DaVinci Resolve for post, Aputure lighting.
- AI tools used: Google Veo, Adobe Firefly, Midjourney, Flux, Kling — for visual transitions, metaphors, subtitles, colour correction, pre-visualisation.
- AI never used for: AI actors, AI voices, generated humans on screen.

## Director: Maksym Chuzha

- IMDb: nm11462605 — https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11462605/
- Wikipedia (Ukrainian): "Чужа Максим Федорович"
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maksym-chuzha
- Working languages: Ukrainian (primary), British English (international).

## Contact

Direct enquiries through https://ngds.design/ and the contact forms on individual project pages:
- https://ngds.design/veterans
- https://ngds.design/recruitment
- https://ngds.design/video