Alena Starostina was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and graduated from the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts in 2007. In 2010, she co-founded theatre post, which became one of the leading voices on the local experimental scene. After relocating to Germany in 2022, she has been working as part of aliveduo, exploring an interdisciplinary approach in which stage presence and film projections, everyday movements and live sounds interact within a shared space, creating a kind of performative cinema.

One of aliveduo's recent theatre and film projects, "Letters Home" (2026), is conceived as a reflection on the experience of war-related emigration. It draws on diary-like collections of thoughts, noises, and videos accumulated over three years. Using analog media and their own bodies as living archives, the piece unfolds as a fragmented chronicle of sensations, capturing memories and the search for belonging.

The idea of temporary, vanishing imprints is one of the key elements of their work. The short film "Trace of a Silent Tear" (2024) explores Karelian lamentation traditions and reflects on forced displacement, invisibility, and silence, not only at the narrative level but also through the conceptual construction of the material. The film was selected for Laterale Film Festival (Italy), RPM Fest (USA), and BISFF (China), and received an Honorary Distinction at the Athens International Digital Film Festival.