Born in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Alina Didenko is in the final year of her Master's Degree in Sound and Image at the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University. As a refugee student, she finds pain to be her greatest source of inspiration. “Seeing something good come out of all the pain makes it even more valuable,” she tells us.

And that's what Alina does through the films she produces, such as her final course project “Bus Stop”. A short film she made with the “responsibility to share awareness of Russian aggression in Ukraine and save the culture, while the aggressor tries to physically erase it with war.”

With this film, the Catholic University student illustrates an “international animation community gathered like birds building a common nest to watch movies.”

This inspiring project represents the “responsibility to help the homeland even from abroad” and Alina's hope to help save the country from regaining independence through artistic expression.

With a past marked by war, the young artist points out: “all art is political.” It's a manifesto, whether to support or criticize the conditions around her.

With a degree in Fine Arts, Alina was able to resume her studies, interrupted by the war, at Católica, where she was supported from an early age, and found a community of refugees who share similar stories.

All thanks to the Initiative to Support Refugee Students and Researchers. “I'm grateful for this experience, which has helped me to integrate into Portuguese animation and art society, and to continue my studies after leaving my country,” says the young artist.