Olena Makarenko was born and lives in Kyiv. She graduated from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in publishing and editing.

Since November 2015, she has been covering events and processes taking place in Ukraine for a foreign audience on the pages of Euromaidan Press. While working on a story about local elections in Kryvyi Rih, she met local activist Anton Kravchenko, about whom she later decided to make a film.

"A City as Long as Life Itself" is Olena's second film. Her first, "The Court," tells the story of the twists and turns surrounding the creation of an anti-corruption court in Ukraine. The film was made for an English-speaking audience and published on the Euromaidan Press website.