We revive everything

Let me tell you about our new cartoons. It sounds strange, because cartoons must be shown, not described them. But since the audience has almost no hope of seeing the new domestic animation, fans of this genre who have to be content with stories of those who saw (strongly reminiscent of hunting stories) for a year. And there, you see, there will accidently come across some cartoon on the video or in the report of the winners of the Western festivals - the name will be remembered.

The reason is clear: the ninth open Russian animation cinema festival has just ended - the only domestic festival, focused only on multiplier and showing in four days everything that has been done at the Russian studios over the past year. Actually, this event is purely intra-limkh: animators come to Suzdal to show themselves, others to see, to die who is what is worth and discuss professional problems. There are no ordinary spectators in the hall, but it is here that the favorites of the year are determined, which will then be scattered from prestigious foreign festivals, only here you can see the overall picture of the state of our animation and decide in terrible decline, as some experts believe, or, on the contrary, on the rise, as others say, also respected people.

The open festival came from a long -standing animated seminar in Bolshevo, it was from there that the tradition of “ratings” went when all participants (now they happen up to three hundred) throw notes with five, in their opinion, the best films, and three directors who gained more votes are honored as winners. From there, awards also went to the winners of the rating - cutting boards with a figure indicating a prize and autographs of masters. The whole spirit of friendly gatherings also went from there: mandatory performances of local amateur performances, cabbage, on which in the most hilarious form are the middle -aged geniuses of animation and its large bosses, from there the bickering of the leading ceremony, who immediately finding out the relations and drive each other from the stage, the appeal to the “guys” hall, and the frivolous formulations of the virtues of the prize films. Therefore, no matter how hard the organizers try to “look solid” and make the impression of “large”, hunging the scene with advertising shields of sponsors, handing the main awards to the main prize -winners and inviting journalists, the open festival still retains the domestic spirit of the part of the parting - charming and incompetent.

The main pride of the Suzdal festival has always been that he shows everything without exception, made over the past year. And a few ago, the organizers suddenly found that despite the deep hole, which, it would seem, was falling from the lack of money all our animation, films sent to the competition, are becoming more and more. The volume was dialed at the expense of “self -use”: by taking over animated computer programs, cartoons could now make almost anyone. It was not decided to “digest” such a volume, and two years ago it was decided to divide the programs into competitive and informational, marking films “at the stage of mastering the animation language”. This year, for the unexplained reasons for the films for the competition, a little has been sent to the competition (although for a couple of years the state has seriously invested in domestic animation). And it was decided to refuse the information program. So all the cities competed with each other again.

So - to the matter.

Winners

There are always five prizes at the open festival, one of which is the Grand Prix. This time, the jury decided to give as many as two main prizes, one of which was resourcefully called the Gran and was given to Dmitry Geller for the film "Little Night Symphony", and the other - "At" - went to Ivan Maximov for "Wind along the coast".

The thirty-three-year-old Yekaterinburg Dmitry Geller debuted as a director recently and his first film "Hello from Kislovodsk" three years ago began his victorious tour with the Grand Prix of the open festival. That film - a lyrical stream of memories of a random resort novel - was built as a series of flying associations, music, photographs, voices, the noise of waves, rains and lights of an empty dance floor, from which a movie reminiscent of the Norztein fairy fairy tale. The second film of Geller, described by the author as "The History of the Creation of one Musical Work", again connects the drawing with voluminous animation, and is built again, as a chain of replacing fantastic images. But this time they are much worse in history. We see how the cat after the departure of the owner is located before something like a small theater of puppets, and watches the rehearsals go there, strange figures move, listens to the adjusting orchestra. An exquisitely beautiful pattern in a dull “old” gamut of bronze, brittle lace, smashed glasses, flickering candles for some reason causes for some reason the Shemyakinsky “Nutcracker” in Mariinka, with his marching mouse monsters in hats and loveries. In addition, in the film, someone's head -headed one pops up with a huge mouth and a saber - like the Nutcracker himself.

Many have experienced the "Symphony" Victory - it is known that the foggy author’s cinema is traditionally more respected than a coherent story or a cheerful joke. But when it comes not about prizes, but about the audience success, it, as a rule, loses even with a public consisting of professionals. So this time, the rating, which the Suzdal participants value above official awards set the Symphony only in an honorable fourth place.

Another Grand Prix is ​​Ivan Maksimov - a well -known and recognized person in the domestic animation, who received both the Berlin “Bear” and “Nick”, the author of many films, clips, commercials with very recognizable heroes - funny and touching monsters similar to rubber toys that easily change their shape. The current monochrome "wind along the coast" (about how the inhabitants of the coastal village suffer from the wind), perhaps from the best Maximov films. His main character is a girl who goes ashore playing the sand with a bucket and a spatula and, having met a winged bunny, returns back. It is very difficult to describe this incredibly funny and delicate film full of hilarious gags and sentimental absurdity. It will be necessary to recall the huge fish, which is led to milk on the rope (she has legs), and also small spherical creatures, which are hit by the wind into the wall of the house (falling, they quickly run inside) until it destroys, and then all these living balls fly out of the window with a burst. The way, in another house, a creature similar to a pig, with a draft throws out the window and from the street only it is visible in a malateenus-to-the-tat embrasure of a naked priest. And near the house - a fence on which a cartoon on Maksimov is drawn. The way the girl carries the wind on the beach, and she, driving along the sand, continues to do the Easter cakes busily. Well and so on. "Wind along the coast" received second place in the ranking.

Of the remaining three winners - two also headed the rating: “About the crayfish” of Valentina Olshwang and “South of the North” by Andrei Sokolov. The coincidence of the opinions of the jury and the hall does not always happen at the open festival, and if it happens, then the selected films are really the best.

The fairy tale "About crayfish" by another Yekaterinburg Valentin Olschwang has already managed to receive the main prize of Krok , the international animated festival, which is held every fall together with Ukraine and Russia. The northern etymological legend of the origin of crayfish, similar to the "Scarlet Flower" and "Medea" combined, has turned into history about passion, a tender history and terrible, made in a rare and exquisite multi -layer technique of glass painting. In a soft, blurry drawing, a plot of a village girl who loved the monster is a winged “snake” with huge almond -shaped eyes and the face of Valentin Olshwang comes to life. About their wedding among galloping evil spirits and love, full of meek happiness. Warm fairy tale and domestic village details are mixed here with a cruel pagan plot and gloomy muttering phonogram - terrible sentences and spells. The girl’s mother, exhausted by a neighboring gossip, dreaming of returning her daughter, kills a gullible snake, and then the heroine in his desperate kills her children. Her son turns into cancer, his daughter into a wagtail, and the northern honey flies in a cuckoo. The film Olshwang took third place in the ranking.

And, finally, the main audience favorite, which immediately received the first place with a large margin in the ranking, and the jury prize is the film by Andrei Sokolov “South of the North”, made at the pilot studio. Sokolov, who is not even thirty, debuted in directing three years ago by a hilariously funny-funny-end-ending film "Latex" about the loving bull. Since then, with amazing stability, he releases every year in the film, shot according to his own scenario: “Hash” (about how three pigs were welded by Santa Claus, taking him for a wolf climbing into the pipe), “found a capture” (about a little cheetah, which no one in the desert did not want to consider his own). And now - "south of the north" - a plot about how two fish fishermen - ours (with a fishing rod and oar) and from Alaska (with a computer and motor) crashed together and traveled in search of a house until they sailed to Antarctica. They fell into the stomach of a whale, threw a bottle of a mobile phone into the water, shouted a huge liner floating past (the animators in the hall, on the deck, had fun, Nazarov, Tatar and many others, caught flying fish. A cheerful and bright drawing, dynamism and a huge number of gags, of course, captivated the hall. They would have conquered the audience if they could get to them, but how to do it?

Applied animation

Today, there are two main ways to get to the viewer: a cinema (this is only for a full -length movie, which is practically not done in Russia) and television. And on television, our cartoons are now almost not shown, because, like in the West, we switched to a simple and convenient broadcasting grid, for which the main thing is that the film corresponds to the "format". The best way for this is the animated series, which television is ready to buy in whole packages, preferably 52 pieces (that is, a show one per week for a year) and 26 (or two for 13, 4 to 6 and a half) minutes (half an hour of display, taking into account advertising). Accordingly, “informal” and “piece” films are practically no chance of being shown on television, except for thematic programs for those interested (but almost none). If you look at the timing of the recently made films, it is clear that they are trying to fit themselves under the "format", but without a "package" and there is nothing to count on.

Since creating a debugged, “fluid” production of series is a technologically complex and costly matter, we had not done this before and only western and eastern old series bought at a cheap and eastern old series. But in Suzdal several new serial projects were shown at once (it is funny that the state also gives money for commercial series). Firstly, good -natured, but very primitive “mixes” (plots for the smallest about spherical beasts - rabbit, lamb, hedgehog, pig, etc.), which the St. Petersburg team of Ilya Popov producers are designed for 200 episodes. This project even received a diploma with a strange formulation "for the successful beginning of an animated commercial project, which fundamentally opposes the idea of ​​violence on the screen" (either other cartoons do not want to resist violence, or they do not fundamentally do it). And the second, for those who are a little older - “Grandma Hedgehog and others” - with the funny and bright drawings of Marina Leskova, but the static and uninteresting script of Mikhail Lipskov about the baby, whom the stork dropped to forest evil spirits and goblin with Kikimors decide who will educate the child. “Grandma Hedgehog” also received a diploma with an even more ambiguous formulation: “Creators who clearly identified the desire to create a cheerful, bright series with folklore characters.” For designation of desire, therefore.

It is characteristic that the Dyatlovs shown in the competition of the next series of the teenage series "Ren -TV" (our version of the Simpsons is a family of elongated idiots), the festival did not seem to notice. And this three -dimensional film, made using new technologies (when the character movements are set by actors hung with sensors, and computers fix them) turned out to be not perfect, but entertaining and dynamic. And quite capable of keeping the attention of a teenager for 26 minutes - and this is already not bad. But at the open festival, traditionally not very complained of strangers.

However, applied animation is not only series. For our animated studios, this, first of all, give the opportunity to earn advertising, clips, computer games, educational films, screensavers for television and the Internet. And although, all these custom -made products primarily depend on the taste of customers, lovely films are also found here. For example, this time everyone liked the series of 20 second commercials "Radio Classics of Petersburg" by Alena Oyeva, where, for example, a parachute mouse was accompanied by a fragment from the Strausov "bat". And under the "Seasons", a snowman was melting, discovering a portrait of Tchaikovsky. There was also a funny St. Petersburg series "300 stories about Petersburgers" - quite simple, in the flash technology despised by the animators, showing anniversary jokes such as the Harmsovsky - about Pushkin, Gogol, Stasov and so on.

But the best of all of the applied were the clips of our former compatriot, and now the American Alexei Budovsky, made for the English artist Stephen Cowts, are rapid black and white silhouette stories, absurd and very stylish. Budovsky, however, had already received awards for these clips on Krok and in Florida.

Children's cinema

Animation is traditionally considered a children's genre. In Soviet times, for a long time it was so. Films for adults began to appear only in the early sixties, but there were still few of them. But in post -Soviet times, in the absence of a state order, children's animation almost completely came to naught. And if the authors of the drawn films continued to work, then the puppet animation, not very familiar to make an “adult movie”, would have died at all if our puppeteers were not in demand by the West and did not work so much on high -quality English “fairy -tale” and “classical” projects, which, unfortunately, were almost never seen with us. But a couple of years ago, when the president spoke out for supporting art for children, and separate money was allocated for this, children's cinema began to appear again. Just at that time, Western projects ended in the bosom of domestic animation, the master-worshipers returned. In Suzdal, for example, there was a very entertaining and terrible puppet fairy tale of Ekaterina Mikhailova "The hotel from the godmother" (he was awarded with a diploma) and the sweet "girl Lucy and grandfather Krylov" Maria Muat. And also made by Marina Novogrudskaya in the aesthetics of the silent cinema “Shot” according to the story of Leo Tolstoy “Shark” - boring, but spectacular connecting dolls with 3D magicians - animations. And the prize for the best children's film was received by Sofia Kravtsova - a drawn story about bugs selling musical instruments.

There were other children's films, caressed the jury, but I admit that much more they liked the noticed “quiet story” by Alexei Demin, who received Nick for “cats in the rain” not so long ago. This time, Demin again took off a delicate watercolor fairy tale - leisurely and full contemplation - about a bear, which lagged behind his strict mother, dreaming of a bump, similar to an asterisk.

Other favorites

Well, literally a few words about three pretty films that you will also not be easy to find. Firstly, this is a very funny black and white with intentionally clumsy graphics film of Dmitry Elyashev’s debutants and Mikhail Leipunsky- Salo. It contains three angry, knitted pigs, with crutches, in black glasses and machine guns behind the shoulders, come out of the forest towards the village. There they open the door of the house with their foot, from where the song “Fuck - Piddil” rushes and yells, putting down the weapon: “Is there a crests?” I must say that the debutants were given a festival diploma with a mocking formulation of the “Film“ Salo ”, which did not have time to get the Grand Prix at the Krok festival. I must say to the honor of Ukrainian guests from Krok - they laughed with everyone.

There was also a cute film “Two Plus One” by Elena Chernova, who over last year’s debut ”about the girl who found her bear“ according to Sasha Cherny’s poem, has already received a basket of awards. This time, Chernova composed a joke on the "giraffes" - a novel begins between two crafty muzzles on long necks, but the third interferes with them. After some time, the punctuation "The camera drives away" and it is found that all three are the heads of one dragon.

And the last - "Ivan -Huan" Stepan Biryukov and Konstantin Arefiev - a laconic and funny watercolor bike about the fat hero of Ivan, who is unsuccessfully walking from a fork along all three roads and a thin Idalgo Juan, who is successful in everything, especially among women. В конце концов, измочаленный влюбленными женщинами Хуан пал от рук трех Командоров, а Иван счастливо возвращается домой с красоткой в кокошнике.

Ну, что ж - может быть, что-то интересное и забыла, но все ведь не опишешь. Лучше бы, конечно, увидеть, но тут можно рассчитывать только на редкие показы в "Анимаклассах" музея Кино. Ну и на видео-сборники - там тоже кое-что появляется. Нынче анимация - искусство для неленивых и любопытных.