100TH ANNIVERSARY OF RUSSIAN CARTOONS
Vestnik Kavkaza
Oct 24 2012
Russia
The Big Festival of Cartoons returns in Moscow on October 26 and will
last for 12 days.
Dina Goder, the program director of BFC-2012, film expert, theater
critic
Importance and charm of the festival is that it is rated for any
kind of audience. There are many programs about children for adults,
teenagers, the old, cartoon specialists, and those who want to have
fun. One can create his own cartoon at the cartoon factory – we have
a whole factory with cardboard workshops where young directors create
cartoons together with children. One can watch series, for example,
for children while eating and drinking cocoa. A lot of opportunities.
One of central programs is called “First Run.” This program is always
very popular because we show cartoons shot by Russian directors during
the last year.
Moreover, we have the program “School” where we demonstrate
young multiplication – cartoons shot by students or graduators
of universities. The program devoted to the 100th anniversary of
Russian cartoons is “Silent Cartoons. Live Music.” We have a plenty
of Russian cartoons which have never been showed, published, and
they are wonderful. We will have a cartoon concert where they will
be demonstrated. The program will begin from the film of 1912 by
Vladislav Starevich, a pioneer of our cartoon animation. Other cartoons
will be of the 1920s. Georgy Borodin collected them especially for
us. An outstanding band from Tallinn will accompany us – a crazy,
bright band. Its leader, composer, musician, Kaspar Yantsis is a
cartoon director too. His cartoon Villa Antropoff is a nice story
which takes place at the abandoned villa of the former general
secretary Andropov. I think it will be a joyful concert which is
worthy attendance.
Maria Tereshchenko, the program director of BFC-2012
I cannot tell you the history of the Caucasus animation in one
sentence. Multiplication in Georgia was born before the war. They have
strong traditions. Armenian cartoons have powerful traditions too. As
for the Soviet audience in general, Armenian cartoons were the most
popular due to the genius of Robert Saakyants who created “In the blue
sea, in white foam”, “Maslenitsa!”, “Wow, Speaking Fish!” Everybody
knows them well: they are funny and lambent. The other interesting
moment is that one of the major Soviet animators Lev Atamanov (he is
the author of “The Snow Queen”, “The Golden Antelope”, “The Scarlet
Flower” and all best cartoons) began his career in Armenia. A lot
was connected with the Caucasus in the Soviet multiplication.
Unfortunately, today the situation is very bad. I talked to Georgians
about it: cartoons are not supported, studios are destroyed. Actually,
if you look at any cartoon festival today, you won’t find Georgian,
Armenian, or Azerbaijani works there. Few works are produced. For
example, I have seen only one Azerbaijani cartoon for 10 years, even
though annually I watch thousands of cartoons. One Azerbaijani, some
Georgian works created for children at children studios, and several
Armenian cartoons – too little. A lot was done under Saakyants even
in the 2000s: the series Taverna; animation educational programs on
geography and so on.
Of course national Georgian, Ossetian, and other fairytales are filmed
– in “Mountain of Gems” Natasha Berezova had “Proud Mouse”, as far as
I remember it is an Ossetial fairytale. There are many examples. For
instance, a Georgian lullaby is in the project “Lullabies of the
world”, as well as an Armenian lullaby. “Mountain of Gems” includes
a Dagestan fairytale. We, Russian animators, don’tforget about the
Caucasus; wonderful cultural Caucasian heritage is widely used in
cartoons.
This year the festival will have a new professionalprogram “Anima
Campus” where students from various countries will try to create
thematic cartoons. Another innovation is a variety of special
programs. At the moment we are going beyond our limits: for instance,
we have a Halloween program and genre programs. We have extended the
audience part as sometimes we used to come to arthouse. This time we
have a plenty of programs for mass audience: both children and adults.
What is our peculiarity? First of all, the volume as I cannot remember
any other festival presenting such a big volume and variety. Secondly,
we are available. As a rule cartoon festivals are oriented at
professionals; they are held in small towns and small places, and it
is difficult to get there. Thirdly, our special actions, for example, a
cartoon factory, the concert. This year we will have stereo-animation,
3D animation. A producer from Canada will tell us about it, will show
us how to transform cartoons into stereo-cartoons.
We try to create something new always to make the show unusual,
modern, and bright.
Pavel Shvedov, the curator of the Russian cartoon exhibition
We will demonstrate the movie “Beautiful Lyukanida” which is a starting
point of the Russian animation. The exhibition is devoted to cartoon
characters which were created by Soviet and Russian directors.
We would like to remind everybody about them. We want to present these
characters from a professional point of view – when a character is not
completed, when a director, a photographer and a crew are in the middle
of the working process and still don’t know what result they will have.
The majority of materials have never been shown before. We also use
copies to show a mystery of giving birth to a character. A person
who comes to the exhibition begins a certain dialogue with himself
and feels emotions caused by the characters which he will look at
from the other side.
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/culture/32919.html