
Directing
Aleksandr Lukich Ptushko (Russian: Александр Лукич Птушко, 19 April [O.S. 6 April] 1900 – 6 March 1973) was a Soviet animation and fantasy film director, and a People's Artist of the USSR (1969). Ptushko is frequently (and somewhat misleadingly) referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney," because of his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union, though a more accurate comparison would be to Willis H. O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen. Some critics, such as Tim Lucas and Alan Upchurch, have also compared Ptushko to Italian filmmaker Mario Bava, who made fantasy and horror films with similarities to Ptushko's work and made similarly innovative use of color cinematography and special effects. He began his film career as a director and animator of stop motion short films, and became a director of feature-length films combining live action, stop motion, creative special effects, and Russian mythology. Along the way he would be responsible for a number of firsts in Russian film history (including the first feature-length animated film, and the first film in color), and would make several extremely popular and internationally praised films full of visual flair and spectacle.

The wizard Finn sends Masha and Vanya on a journey through the fairy tale films of Aleksandr Ptushko, many dangers await them there.

The Adventures of Bratishkin at the Moscow Sports Festival.

The film consists of short stories about participants of the Great Patriotic War, who returned from the front and entered a peaceful life. The heroes of the tape are fellow soldiers: Major Kornev, formerly a domain engineer; petty officer Samoseev, in the future chairman of the collective farm; senior lieutenant Rudnikov expects an Arctic expedition, and lieutenant Bela Mukhtarova will go with a party of geologists to the East.

Four evil wizards succeeded to become young by using a time stolen from lazy kids. Now these kids who became seniors must act fast if they want to return to their real age.

Based on a famous fairy tale, in verse, by Alexander Pushkin, this ravishingly beautiful fantasy is about love, magic, betrayal and abandoned family. Driven from the Russian court by her sisters' scheming, the young Tsarina is thrown into the sea in a cask with her infant son. Surviving the storm-tossed voyage, the mother and her now magically-adult son land on a remote island where he falls in love with a Swan Princess in human form, and longs for reunion with his estranged father, Tsar Saltan. Merchants come to the island with news of the tsar, and the prince sends word back to him, but the sisters continue their campaign of lies and trickery to keep them apart.

This remarkable film is based on P. Bazhov’s fairy tale “The Malachite Box”. Little Danila was the most inquisitive apprentice of old Prokopich, a famous stone-carving master. Years passed… Like his teacher, the grown-up Danila has learned to feel the soul of his material and became an expert in handling rare precious stones found in the Ural Mountains. One day he met the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, a fairy who ordered for herself an unusual stone flower.

Based on an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which was based on a Russian epic tale of the same name. In the old Russian city of Novgorod, the merchants are feasting in a gorgeous palace and Sadko is bragging that he can bring to their land a sweet-voiced bird of happiness. They laugh at him, but he is offered help by the Ocean King's daughter, who is mesmerized by Sadko's singing and is in love with him. The hero is destined to visit many lands in his search of the bird.

A little girl Assol met a wizard and it has been foretold: "... it will be a fine sunny day when a beautiful ship under scarlet sail comes and the noble prince will take you away from here. He'll take you to the world of your dreams, where you will be loved and happy." The neighbours told jokes about her, children teased her, but she waited for her prince. She trusted in the miracles and waited. Arthur Gray's rule was "if you can make a miracle, do it!". And he made a miracle for the wonderful romantic girl.

A stop-motion film based on the Grimm Brothers' folktale, "Town Musicians of Bremen".

The story, a Communist re-telling of Gulliver's Travels, is about a young boy who dreams of himself as a version of Gulliver who has landed in Lilliput suffering under capitalist inequality and exploitation.

The story, a Communist re-telling of Gulliver's Travels, is about a young boy who dreams of himself as a version of Gulliver who has landed in Lilliput suffering under capitalist inequality and exploitation.

In the midst of the wedding party of Prince Ruslan and Ludmila, daughter of Prince Vladimir, the girl is kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Chernomor and the witch Naina. Three of her past suitors set out, as does Ruslan, to rescue Ludmila.


