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Russia's oldest private animation studio (Pilot) closes its doors, has no more money
Director Sergey Merinov wrote in his LiveJournal on July 3rd that Pilot, Russia's oldest private animation studio (see Wikipedia article) will be closing in one week, one of many Russian animation studio casualties recently. If this happens, it will be the end of an era; it was largely Pilot that set the standard for Russian animation after the ( Read more... ) -
Latvia's oldest animation studio closes its doors, has no more money
An article on Telegraf.lv breaks the news about Dauka studio. (a much shorter English-language article can be read here)
Here's a lovely cartoon made at Dauka in 1996, directed by Roze Stiebra. It's called "The Sad Cow":
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Translated article:
Dauka, which has over the course of 40 years released children's cartoons which several generations ( Read more... ) -
Yuriy Norshteyn at Klasky Csupo, 1999
Last week, Vitaly Shafirov uploaded 5 videos to Youtube covering Yuriy Norshteyn's 1999 appearance at the Klasky Csupo studio:
(Shafirov is an emigrant from the Soviet Union, although the only film I could find him credited for is as an animator on this one)
( Read more... ) -
Aleksandr Petrov "making of" videos
Here are a few videos in which director Aleksandr Petrov talks about how he makes his films. To turn on my English subtitles, click on CC in the lower-right-hand corner. (P.S. these videos have been added to the new article on the Animatsiya Wiki: List of subtitled films and reports about Russian animationThis is a news report that appeared on Nov. ( Read more... ) -
More translations: "Hunting Season", "I Shall Give You a Star", "Comet in Moominland, part 3"
"Hunting Season" by Aleksandr Viken (1981, Kievnauchfilm). A "realistic" story from the point of view of a dog which is taken hunting for the first time.
This was Viken's first film as director. It was an early success for him, winning a jury diploma in Tallinn '82 (All-Union Film Festival). Viken also directed "The Last Battle" (1988), which I ( Read more... ) -
Translations by students at the University of California, Santa Cruz
At least one higher education institution is helping to translate Russian animation. To quote from the channel description of UCSantaCruzRussian:
Under the supervision of Professor Bill Nickell, students at the University of California, Santa Cruz have been transcribing, translating, and subtitling Russian-language animation recorded off of Russian ( Read more... ) -
Captain Pronin: the most hardcore action hero ever
Shortly after its independence, Russia was suddenly flooded by 1980s Western action movies. A group of young animators at "Ecran/Soyuztelefilm" studio took it upon themselves to lampoon this film genre. The result is Captain Pronin, an action hero so hardcore that he wears a gun to bed and walks unscathed out of burning buildings ( Read more... ) -
The Last Battle (Kievnauchfilm, 1989)
Well, here is one funny film that is definitely a product of its era. I cannot imagine it getting approved at any time other than the late Soviet "glasnost/perestroika" period. Even in the United States today, a film which so obviously makes fun of the military may be too controversial to get made by a major studio. After a nightmare, a former ( Read more... ) -
The Autumn of Childhood (2005)
Directed by Agamurad Amarov and Yekatirina Boykova, this wordless film is a lyrical story about the 1930s Stalinist repressions, told from the perspective of an old Jewish man who, many years later, returns to the house of his childhood. It uses the paint-on-glass animation technique, though not as proficiently as its greatest masters, Aleksey ( Read more... ) -
Animatsiya Wiki - new features
Some new things on the List of Russian animation subtitled in English1. It is now possible to see if a film has selectable Russian subtitles. This is useful for people who wish to learn Russian, and I've gotten several requests for adding Russian subtitles to my videos. Among other translators, julia2night and ValerieChatoner often provide Russian ( Read more... )
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