This year, a festival of animated cartoons which is held in Moscow during the autumn school holidays from October 26th to November 6th, will be dedicated to the centenary of Russian animation.
More than 400 cartoons, including state-of-the-art and historical films created 100 years ago, will be screened during the festival. The history of Russian animation began in 1912 with the film The Beautiful Leukamida by Russian-French stop-motion animator Wladyslaw Starewicz. The Beautiful Leukamida, made in 1912, became the world’s first puppet movie. The cartoons of the 1920s and later works by an array of prominent animation directors made Russian animation famous all over the world. The so-called ‘patriarchs of Soviet animation’ – Ivanov-Vano, Fyodor Khitruk, Yuriy Norshteyn, and Garri Bardin – created the so-called ‘golden collection’ of Soyuzmultfilm.
The organizers of the festival plan a jubilee exposition titled Cartoon Characters where viewers will be able to track the century-old history of Russian cartoons and will get acquainted with cartoon production technology.
Source: Nu pogodi / IndiaRussiaTV - YouTube
Young animation directors believe that Soviet-made cartoons are of timeless value. Animator Dina Velikovskaya, whose works have won a number of international awards, met with the Voice of Russia’s correspondent.
"It’s a pity Soviet cartoons are rarely on the TV program nowadays. I have a child and we’d understand each other better if he knew films of my childhood. Soviet cartoons cultivated traits I respect and helped me to develop into a wholesome personality."
Velikovskaya’s colleagues create movies which are not for everyone. Fully aware that their works will never reach the wide audience, they are filming for experts. So it’s a vicious circle, Velikovskaya says. Meanwhile, cartoons by Fyodor Khitruk, including Winnie-the-Pooh series, can undoubtedly be described as independent films which are as popular nowadays as forty years ago. Dina Velikovskaya comments.
"I’d like to create films which would be understandable for as many people as possible, which would find a ready response in people regardless of countries they live in. At the same time, there should also be cartoons that appeal to a particular audience."
A professional animator, Dina Velikovskaya remembers with tenderness the cartoon character of her childhood – the little girl from the film The Mitten who dreamed that her mitten had turned into a live puppy. It was at that point that the characters I drew on paper should come alive, Dina said.
First published in the Voice of Russia.
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