Danzico & Company is a film and design shop that uses creativity and innovation to deliver important journalistic information to new audiences.
With a team spread across the globe, Danzico & Company has been hard at work the past several years roaming the planet to bring an artistic touch to dire information.
The team has produced work for BBC, Google, and a number of NGOs. And in summer 2023, the team celebrated the world premieres of two of its documentaries from Ukraine at Tribeca Film Festival, among others.
Today, the band of international creatives, led by by former BBC journalist and innovation head Matt Danzico, is back in development on a slate of projects.
latest FILM
War Games
Documentary Film—In war-torn Ukraine, two young soccer captains, Ivan and Andriy, pick through shrapnel and rubble to play the game they love. Amidst blaring sirens and imminent missile threats, these 12-year-old rivals gear up for an overdue match against each other.
War Games also had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. The 40-minute documentary is a part of the first season of Sports Explains the World by Meadowlark Media, a new sports media company created by the former president of ESPN.
War Games is the first installment of a two-part anthology film, housed within the larger series, Sports Explains the World. Both films track soccer captains in Ukraine as their lives intersect with war. War Games specifically follows two young soccer captains from Bucha and Irpin, just outside Kyiv.
The film was directed by Matt Danzico, produced by Oleksiy Oliyar and Jack Losh, and filmed by Oleg Sologub and Matt Danzico.
Artwork was produced for both Captains of Ukraine and War Games. The image above depicts a character from War Games looking out of a blast in a wall created by a Russian missile.
LATEST INSTALLATION
The blackboard features the story of Ivan, a 12-year-old boy whose school was occupied by Russian troops as they shelled the nearby town of Irpin and carried out a massacre in Bucha
The Bucha Blackboard
Art installation & Fundraiser—The Bucha Blackboard is one of the few objects to have survived the Russian military occupation of Bucha—that now-infamous suburb of Kyiv, where Kremlin soldiers commandeered a school and massacred hundreds of civilians during their brief yet brutal rule. A young student who survived the invasion wrote his story on the board, which once hung in his former classroom.
The Russians were eventually forced out, leaving a trail of bodies across the streets and gardens of this devastated community. Many more lay in a mass grave. Torture and rape were routinely used.
Ivan and his family, however, were never detected. The 12-year-old survived with eight other family members by hiding in a damp basement, approximately 1.5 by 3.5 meters in diameter. Their only reprieve was at night, when they would quietly slip upstairs to use the bathroom and feed their pets, one of which was a chinchilla, named Masha.
The board is currently on display at Westminster City Hall in London.
LATEST DESIGN
Shrapnel Paintings
Journalistic Painting—We’ve created several paintings using shrapnel collected in Ukraine during the production of our last two films. All proceeds from the sale of these paintings, outside of shipping costs, will be directed to our GoFundMe campaign, aimed at repairing the Ukrainian playgrounds and schoolyards featured in our film "War Games."
The paintings are all 70cm x 70cm in size and were crafted using a combination of charcoal, paint, graphite pencil, and a small mixture of ground metal.
The first painting (on the right) is titled "500," commemorating the 500 days of courage and perseverance demonstrated by the Ukrainian people against the invading Russian military.
Each painting is available for purchase at $950 plus shipping. For inquiries, please contact us at info@danzico.co or visit our store.
The shrapnel paintings were made using pieces of metal recovered in Bucha and Irpin, following the filming of War Games, our documentary about children in Ukraine
MORE FILM
Artwork was produced for both Captains of Ukraine and War Games. The image above depicts characters from Captains of Ukraine playing soccer while on leave from fighting in Bakhmut. During this scene, one of the men—a brave soldier whom was killed shortly after production completed, turns to the camera to say: “While we have legs, we play. No one knows. Maybe after the next military rotation, we’ll have no feet.”
Captains of Ukraine
Documentary Film—As the new soccer season approaches amidst the shadow of a nuclear threat, a professional Ukrainian soccer team faces a controversial choice: trading their shin guards for machine guns. With the war escalating, the team practices for a season that may never come and waits anxiously for a battle that almost certainly will. Captains of Ukraine explores the difficult nether world inhabited by athletes who must become soldiers.
The film, which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca film festival, was created over four months in early 2023 across various locations in Ukraine, with invitations and embeds from the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
Captains of Ukraine is 30-minutes and is part II of a two-part anthology film about soccer in Ukraine. Part I, called War Games, is listed below. This two-part film sits within a larger series called "Sports Explains the World" by Meadowlark Media. Meadowlark Media is a new sports media enterprise founded by the former president of ESPN.
The series is expected to hit streaming in fall of 2023.
The film was directed by Matt Danzico, produced by Oleksiy Oliyar, filmed by Oleg Sologub and Matt Danzico, and edited by Dani Benavides.