Elena Lyubarskaya is a screenwriter, producer, and the founder of The Difference Machine, a Berlin-based production company that designs narrative architecture across formats: television, vertical drama, and immersive experience.

She writes television — her credits include Pauline (Disney+, Grimme Preis-nominated), City of Blood (Disney+), and Frankfurter Files (ZDF) — and develops original IP that works across formats and technologies. She graduated from Serial Eyes, the premium European TV writing program at DFFB Berlin, and trained in experimental theatre under Boris Yukhananov at the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre in Moscow.

That theatre training is where her approach to narrative systems began. Yukhananov's work treated storytelling as a live system: structures that generate narrative in real time, responding to what's happening in the room. Years later, Elena recognized the same principles at work in series architecture, in interactive narrative, in AI-driven experience. The methodology she built draws from all of it.

Her projects have won the SteinbrennerMuller Award at Seriesly Berlin, the ONX Studio Award at CPH:FORUM (supported by the Onassis Foundation), and the Immersive Tech Week Award at Stereopsia. She has been selected for CPH:LAB. She develops projects across formats, from animated sitcom (The Last Family on Earth) to AI-powered immersive experience (The Place Beyond).

She founded The Difference Machine to make a difference in how stories are told — because she believes the craft has to lead that change, not follow it.

Selected Credits:
— Pauline (Disney+) — Writer. Grimme Preis-nominated.
— City of Blood (Disney+) — Writer.
— Frankfurter Files (ZDF) — Writer.
— The Last Family on Earth — Creator/Writer. SteinbrennerMuller Award, Seriesly Berlin 2025.
— The Place Beyond — Creator/Producer. ONX Studio Award, CPH:FORUM 2025. Immersive Tech Week Award, Stereopsia.
— Half of Me / Mimi und Ich — Creator/Writer. Series concept in development.