Aleksandr Petrov

(http://www.bigmoviezone.com/filmsearch/directors/director_display.html?uniq=15)

Aleksandr Petrov is a creator of animated films who lives in Yaroslavl. After making his first animations there, he was invited in Canada where he adapted Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea: he got with this movie the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. He returned then to Yaroslavl where he continues his work.

He uses in his creations a technique that is mastered only by a handful of animators in the world: pastel oil painting on glass. He uses his fingers to paint, reserving the brush only for final strokes, and he creates the images on multiple glasses (a level for the landscape, another level for the personages). To allow the superposition of glass sheets, he uses slow-drying oils that allow the passing of light. All this gives depth to the resulting images. In order to create the movement (the animation) he works successively on the same glass, removing the object or the personage and recreating it slightly shifted. It is a painful process, but the result is of astonishing beauty.

I will come back with some of his short films, here I give you a video where he explains the making of his latest production, My Love.

(video of Niffiwan)

• The Cow (1992)
• The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1992)
• Rusalka (1997)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1999)
• My Love (2006)
• The Making of His Movies

(Russian and Soviet Cinema)