Daria Leygonie-Fialko

Daria was born on July 9, 1979, in Kyiv, in the family of theater critics.[2][3] Father, Valery Oleksiyovych Fialko—Honored Art Worker of Ukraine, professor, head of the Department of Theater Studies, teacher of theatrical criticism and history of Russian cheater at Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theater, Cinema and Television University. Mother, Huievska Olga Yuriivna—theater expert, deputy director for research at The State Museum of Theater, Music and Cinema of Ukraine.[4]

In 2001, Daria graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Faculty of Foreign Philology with a degree in Romano-Germanic Languages and Literature. In 2006, she received an MBA degree from the International Institute of Management (Ukraine-Switzerland) in the speciality "Foreign Economic Activity Management".[5][6]

During her studies at the university, from 1997 to 1999, Daria worked as a journalist in the press service of the Ukrainian TV channel "1 + 1", at the same time she was an interpreter and moderator of press conferences at "Molodist" film festival.[5]

From 2002 to 2005 Daria was the Head of Film Acquisitions at 1+1 TV channel, and in 2005 she became the Programming Director of this channel.[7]

Three years later, in 2008, Daria started her work at the Star Media film company as the Producer-In-Chief of television projects. Among her projects are such popular Ukrainian shows as "Maidan's" and "Maidan's-2" on Inter TV channel, "People's Star-2" ("People's Star") and "People's Star-3" on "Ukraine" and others. In 2011 Daria has left the Star Media film company.[6][8][9][10][11]

From December 2011 until August 2016, she was the General Manager of the Russian TV-channel TV-3.[12][13][14][15]

From September 2016 until April 2018, Daria worked as the General Manager of CTC, the biggest entertainment channel in Russia.[16][17][18]

In June 2018, Daria Leygonie-Fialko founded the TV production company Space together with her partner Katerina Laskari. Space has been created as a full-cycle production house, as well as a creative producer's centre, generating content for Ukraine and worldwide.[19]

One of the first projects were the Ukrainian series "SLID" ("Trace")[20][16] and "SLIPA" ("The Blind") for STB TV channel. The company produces comedies, detective stories, sports dramas, melodramas etc., such as "Nevirna" ("The Adulteress"),[21][22] "Ridnya" ("The Kinfolk”),[23][24] “Vodna polizia” ("Water Police”),[25][26][27] "Last Axel",[28][7] "DreamTeam"[1] and others.

According to the independent study by MRM (Media Resources Management), Space Production became the leader in terms of the number of episodes produced for Ukrainian television in 2020.[29]

In March 2022, together with other biggest names in Ukrainian TV production industry, Daria co-founded The Organization of Ukrainian Producers (OUP). The main task of OUP is to film documentary projects[30] and feature films[31] on Russian military aggression on the territory of Ukraine.[32][33]   

Married, her husband Antoine Leygonie-Fialko is French by nationality, the couple has two children.[4]

2013 — The Firm's Secret magazine named Daria Fialko "the youngest general director of a federal television channel in the Russian Federation"[34]

2016 — "Anna The Detective" series - the winner of Film and Television Producers Association Award in the nomination "Best TV series (more than 24 episodes)"[35][36]

2018 — the series "Flying Crew" - winner of TEFI-2018 award in the nomination "Television serial comedy / Sitcom"[37][38]

TBI — TBI’s 2023 Predictions: Daria Leygonie-Fialko, CEO SPACE Production & co-founder OUP // January 2022

Cineuropa — Daria Leygonie-Fialko and Kateryna Laskari spoke about the current state of Ukrainian TV production, the opening of their Paris-based office and the future of Ukraine’s audiovisual industry // June 2022

TVBIZZ Magazine — New Ukrainian Documentaries Tell the Stories of the War // June 2022

TBI — Telcos & Netflix disrupting business models amid scripted evolution // June 2022

"Media Heads" — "Space Production" founders about how media became life, the way to own business and the formula of success // December 2021

MBR — Producers, distributors and showrunners - about how to raise domestic series to a new level // October 2021

MBR — How Daria Fialko's production shoots Slid ("The Trace) series for STB // March 2020

MBR — Daria Leygonie-Fialko and her company Space Production launched pitching ideas // February 2020