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The Big Cartoon Festival begins in Moscow
The end of October - beginning of November this year in Moscow is cartoon time. It all starts with the flash animation festival-competition “Penguin-Flash”, which will be held from October 29 to 31 at the Formula Kino Europe cinema and will quite widely present cartoons from the Russian-language Internet, including those made by children. Then on October 31, at the 35 MM cinema, they will also show flash, but this time a conceptual one: there will be a presentation of the disc of the conceptual animation project KOMS.ru. His darkly philosophical and gruesome cartoons are specially shown on Halloween, accompanied by entertainment on the theme of blood and torture. Further, from November 2 to 5, in the same cinema “35 MM”, to the delight of numerous fans, the Sixth Moscow Anime Festival will also be held with a lot of entertainment around the sessions - such as performances by cyber-punk bands and the sale of anime souvenirs. Well, the largest in this whole cartoon celebration of life will be the Big Cartoon Festival, which will be held from October 31 to November 11 at nine venues in Moscow and requires a detailed story.To begin with, this festival has 12 thematic programs, each of which has many subprograms, sections, etc., so that as a result, more than 40 completely different selections of domestic and foreign animation will be shown in ten days. The festival starts with a program of films - the winners of the animation competition at the last Vyborg festival. And these will really be the main films of the past season: the enchantingly picturesque “My Love” by our Oscar winner Alexander Petrov, the laconic graphics of Konstantin Bronzit - the funny and touching “Restroom Story - a Love Story”, the most tender film about childhood - “Fool Girl” from Yekaterinburg debutante Zoya Kireeva, which has already collected almost as many prizes as Petrov’s film. And the bright, large-scale puppet “Snow Maiden” by Maria Muat after Ostrovsky.
Then the children's block will begin: in five cinemas on the outskirts of Moscow, from November 1 to November 4, from morning to evening, domestic cartoons made after 2000 will be shown. The films here will also be excellent and very rewarding. In the program “for children from three years old,” for example, (and the selections are divided into three age groups) they will show the film “The King Forgets” by Veronica Fedorova, who took the prize for her debut at the Suzdal festival this year. The program for “from eight years old” includes “Zhikharka” by Oleg Uzhinov, the only film that represented Russia at this year’s Berlinale, as well as “Cats in the Rain” by 2002 Nika laureate Alexei Demin, and other festival winners. The program “from 12 years old” includes the same touching “Stupid Girl”, the funniest films of recent years: “Bugs” by Mikhail Aldashin (about the fight between insects and people), school “Petrel” by Alexey Turkus, an anecdote about the loving bull Latex Andrey Sokolov and much more. Plus two “Lullabies of the World” by Elizaveta Skvortsova in each children's program. And among the full-length films that will also be shown in the children's block, it is worth seeing the charming Estonian film “Lotte Travels South” - ironic fairy-tale adventures for kids.
In the “Schools” block, you will get acquainted with four national animation schools, each presenting a selection. From Russia there is VGIK with a large number of winners of both the “St. Anna” competition in recent years and reputable, “adult” festivals. And the school-studio “SHAR”, whose program consists entirely of prizosonous cartoons, including the film - a favorite of recent years, “Caution, the doors are opening” by Anastasia Zhuravleva, where a lyrical story about the metro is told with the help of buttons and pins. Ukraine (Kiev University of Theatre, Film and Television) will present a selection very diverse in technique and mood, where the main star is the plasticine “Tram No. 9” by Stepan Koval, winner of the Berlinale. Prague film school FAMU will show not only branded Czech “subject” students, but also hand-drawn animation and 3D. But especially here it is worth paying attention to the terrible puppet gothic “The Bringer of Light” - this is a 25-minute film by Vaclav Švankmajer, the son of the famous Prague surrealist.
The "Names" program features retrospectives of four animation stars who died this year. In addition to well-known hits, Alexander Tatarsky’s program includes two rare films - the debut “Speaking of Birds” in 1974, made back in Kyiv together with Igor Kovalev, and the perestroika video from “The Time Machine” “I’ll Let You Know.” The retrospective of the founder of Estonian puppet animation, Elbert Tuganov, includes mainly satirical films of the 70s. Retrospectives of two Oscar nominees are also expected - the Canadian experimentalist Ryan Larkin and the Italian Emmanuele Luzzati, the author of amazing picturesque operas.
The Studios block represents two animation companies, mainly producing puppet cartoons: the Russian Animos and the oldest Estonian Nukufilm, which turns 50 this year. “Animos” has an adult selection where, in addition to the prize-winning puppets “The Captain’s Daughter” (“Golden Eagle” last year) and “The Snow Maiden,” they will show two hand-drawn films by a recent VGIK graduate, Yulia Aronova, about which even the stern Yuri Norshtein speaks admiringly. And in the nursery you can see several fairy tales - both puppet and drawn. The Nukufilm program was divided into two parts differently: in one they mixed both adult and children's films, here it is worth paying attention to the films “Barbarians” (a parody story about the country of happy idiots Barbie), “Brothers Bearheart” (this is a mocking continuation of Shishkin’s story about “ Morning in a Pine Forest”, where the bear cubs grew up and became impressionist artists) and “Instinct” (a toy version of the creation of the world and man). The second program is a very unusual selection of experimental, complex cinema using rare techniques and psychedelic plots, which is unlikely to be seen anywhere else.
“Festivals” are the winners of two famous international shows. The most prestigious animation festival in the world takes place in the French city of Annecy, its program will show winning films from 1973 to 1979 (in particular, there will be one film by the Dutch star Paul Driessen, whose retrospective was held in Moscow this year). The Russian-Ukrainian floating festival “Krok” will bring selections of films by its laureates from 1995 to 2005, where there will be many of the best films of domestic animation: “Christmas” by Mikhail Aldashin, “Switchcraft” by Konstantin Bronzit, the Oscar-winning “The Old Man and the Sea” by Alexander Petrov , Emmy Award-winning “The Barber of Seville” by Natalia Dabizha and others.
Three selections from the “Premieres” block are the latest domestic films, some of which are promised to be shown directly from the editing room, while others have already received their first portion of prizes (for example, Ivan Maksimov’s film “Rain from Top to Down,” which can be considered a sequel to his film “The Wind Along the Shore”).
The highlight of the second weekend of the festival is the “Winners” program. As many as seven selections of films - winners of the most respectable animation festivals in the world in 2006, one of them especially for children. It is at these sessions that you will be able to see what new domestic animation looks like against the background of the world, and understand that it looks not bad at all. And while some of the winning Russian films can be found in other selections, for the majority of foreign films, screenings at the BFM are unique. It is worth seeing, for example, the French three-dimensional "Overtime" - a film dedicated to the memory of the creator of "The Muppet Show" Jim Henson, where toy frogs try to revive a dead owner and, to the music, make him move the way he once moved them. The disturbing and gloomy “Milk” by Igor Kovalev, a former co-author of Alexander Tatarsky who emigrated to America, tells about one day in the life of an eight-year-old boy watching his father. “Dying of Love” by Gil Alkabetz, who lives in Germany, is a funny and touching story about chattering parrots and the late epiphany of a deceived husband. The French "Spine Story" is a witty and sentimental story about the love of heroes with a curved spine, and the British "Rabbit" by Ran Rake is a paradoxical transformation of pictures from an old primer into a bloody and repulsive story about punished greed.
A few words about special programs. "Archive" is two selections made by the Museum of Cinema. The first is about films by Russian directors of the 1910s-1930s (however, one of them, the inventor of the pin screen Alexander Alekseev, worked in France), and the second is about cartoons from national studios of the USSR in the 70s-80s. “Russian Flash” is an author’s selection of flash animation from the Russian-language Internet, made by St. Petersburg-based director Maria Yakushina. There will be films of different genres, and not just the usual black humor and horror for Flash. The main motto of the selection, which will also include films by Yakushina herself, is “made with hands, not with ass,” in the sense that, first of all, the films were selected for their high quality. The BFM program will also show documentaries - four TV film programs shot by today's Moscow animation experts Natalya Lukinykh, Irina Margolina and Sergei Kapkov. And finally, for education and entertainment, there will be a master class by Elizaveta Skvortsova and Veronika Fedorova for children and adults, where they will show how cartoons are made. Anyone who can complete this animation marathon from start to finish will, I think, not only feel like a cartoon connoisseur, but will also have great fun.