Dec 14 2022
To celebrate the season, here’s a vintage style Christmas Coca Cola ad by the Academy Award-winning, Soviet born animator Aleksandr Petrov. The commercial was created in 2001, and was based on Haddon Sundblom’s jolly Santa illustrations, which first debuted in 1931 Coke ads.
Dec 07 2022
Here is a charming excerpt, “Singing Cat,” from Ladislas Starevich’s first animated feature, and often regarded as his finest work, The Tale of the Fox (Le Roman de Renard), made with his daughter Irene in 1941. Ladislas Starevich was born in Moscow on August 8, 1882 and moved to France following the Russian Revolution. He …
Nov 30 2022
This animated short was created by Russian artist Yuri Norstein, who is known for his attention to fine detail in his beautiful handmade stop-motion films which often include layers of sketches and paintings on paper and glass. It took Norstein almost two years to create this short piece. He creates delicate movements, a unique sense …
Nov 09 2022
Here’s a little treat for Wednesday: a jam ad created for Russian Sugar directed by Yuri Norstein. It was one of a group of Russian Sugar commercials made by Norstein between 1994 and 1995 that used cutouts and drawings for the animations (a bit past the Soviet era but still delightful and created by beloved …
Nov 01 2022
Happy birthday to Hello Kitty, whose birthday is November 1, 1974. Kitty White, aka Hello Kitty, shares a birthday with her designer and creator Yuko Shimizu, born on this day November 1, 1946 in Kyoto, Japan. Interestingly, the current Hello Kitty company owner, Tomokuni Tsuji, was also born on November 1st in 1988. The previous owner, …
Oct 12 2022
Last week we had an introduction to the Brumberg Sisters, and this week we have another great film by the duo, featuring one of the scariest characters of folklore, Baba-Yaga. While this fairy tale, and others, portray her as a child-hunting witch, there are some different renditions of Baba-Yaga. In Slavic folklore, Baba-Yaga is typically …
Oct 05 2022
Let me introduce you to The Brumberg Sisters, Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg, who worked together as animators, screenwriters, and directors, creating around 50 films in total. This is their spooky animation of Charles Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale, made in 1937. Perrault’s version was a cautionary message to children about stranger danger.
Sep 28 2022
Seasons, made in 1969, is one of the most beloved Russian animations, directed by Yuri Norstein and Ivan Ivanov-Vano, with the music of Tchaikovsky. You can find this and four other animations by Norstein: The Battle of Kerzhenets, Fox and Rabbit, The Heron and the Crane, and Hedgehog in the Fog, all on DVD in Masters of …
Sep 21 2022
In Birthnight, Night visits young Tima, a boy who sleeps with the light on because he is afraid of the dark, and she invites him to her nighttime birthday party in the woods. If the story doesn’t sound intriguing enough, the eccentric synth music of Eduard Artemyev is sure to transport you to another world, …
Aug 08 2022
Hungarian folk artist Károly Reich was born on this day August 8, 1922, in the village of Balatonszemes.