My Name Is Oil
2025 · 14' · documentary
dir. Igor Smola
Sheffield DocFest · Hong Kong IFF · Filmfest Dresden · MUBI
Stories are journeys.
We find the way.
Film strategy & boutique distribution for independent cinema We find the way for your stories
Selected films
Films we walk with
A small, considered slate. The festival honours belong to the directors; our work is to carry these films further, into the right rooms and the right audiences.
01Festival strategy
Charting the route
Every film has a path that fits it and one that wastes it. We read the work honestly, then plan a festival route built around its real strengths - the premiere tier, the right sidebars, the audiences that will carry it by word of mouth.
- Honest positioning and premiere planning
- A festival map made for one film, not a template
- Timing, deadlines, and submissions handled
A festival run is not luck. It is cartography.
We have walked this road with our own films across more than thirty selections. We know where it narrows and where it opens.
02Boutique distribution
Finding the buyers
When a film has a name but no sales yet, the festival journey turns into a commercial one. We place rights with care - television, streaming, the educational market, niche channels - and write to each partner personally, never in bulk.
- TV, streaming, educational and niche rights
- Personal outreach, not mass mailing
- No upfront fee - commission on real deals
You bring the film. We carry the risk.
Our model is simple. There is nothing to pay at the start. We earn only when the film does - when a deal closes or a prize is won.
No upfront cost Commission on wins and sales You lose nothing
What we do
Four points on the path
StrategyСтратегия
A festival route mapped for one film.
DistributionДистрибуция
Rights placed with care, deal by deal.
GuidanceСопровождение
With you at every step, in plain words.
VisibilityВидимость
The right framing for the right audience.
Cinema is a way of holding space for what matters. We believe every story deserves its audience.
STEZAСТЕЗЯ
Journal
All essays →
Notes from the road
On the Power of Small Stories
A thirteen-minute film can hold as much weight as a feature. What it needs is not a bigger stage, but the right one.
Read →Cartography of Emotion
Mapping a festival route is less about prestige and more about temperature - finding the rooms where a film will be felt, not just screened.
Read →Distributing With Intention
Selling a film well is slow, personal work. The right home for a film is worth more than the fastest offer on the table.
Read →
About
An agency built by directors
We are filmmakers who walked the whole path with our own films, learned where it helps and where it hurts, and turned that into a working method for others.
We work with auteur cinema we believe in. We speak plainly, we promise nothing we cannot do, and we stay with a film until its journey is finished.
Vladimir Koptsev
Strategy and operations. Director, graduate of Alexander Sokurov's workshop. Seven films, more than thirty selections.Barcelona
Elena Koptseva
Producing, network, and educational events. Builds the relationships a film travels on.Berlin
Igor Smola
Festival expertise and director relations. A maker's eye on the festival landscape.Baku
Let's find its way
If you have a finished film with a name and no clear next step, write to us. The first conversation costs nothing, and you keep every right until something real is on the table.
hello@steza.agency