Fyodor Khitruk

    Known For

    Directing

    Birthday

    May 1, 1917

    Day of Death

    December 3, 2012 (95 years old)

    Place of Birth

    Tver, Russian Empire

    Fyodor Khitruk

    Biography

    Fyodor Savelyevich Khitruk (Russian: Фёдор Савельевич Хитрук; 1 May 1917 – 3 December 2012; Tver) was a Russian (and Soviet) animator and animation director. Khitruk was born in Tver (Russian Empire), into a Jewish family. He came to Moscow to study graphic design at the OGIS College for Applied Arts. He graduated in 1936 and started to work with "Soyuzmultfilm" in 1938 as an animator. From 1962 onwards, he worked as a director. His first film "Story of One Crime" was an immense success. Today, this film is seen as the beginning of a renaissance of Soviet animation after a two-decade-long life in the shadows of Socialist realism. Diverging from the “naturalistic” Disney-like canons that were reigning in the 1950-60s in Soviet animated cartoons, he created his own style, which was laconic yet multi-level, non-trivial and vivid. He is the director of outstanding animated short films including such classics as his social satire of bureaucrats, "Man in the Frame" (1966); the philosophic parable, "Island" (1973) about the loneliness of a man in modern society; the biographical film "A Young Man Named Engels – A Portrait in Letters" (1970), based on drawings and letters of young Engels; the parody "Film, Film, Film" (1968); and the anti-war film, "Lion and Bull" (1984). In April 1993, Khitruk and three other leading animators (Yuri Norstein, Andrei Khrzhanovsky, and Eduard Nazarov) founded SHAR Studio, an animation school and studio in Russia. The Russian Cinema Committee is among the share-holders in the studio. In 2008, he released a two-volume book titled "Profession of Animation". He is the grandfather of violin virtuoso Anastasia Khitruk. Khitruk lived in Moscow, where he died in 2012, aged 95.

    Known For

    • Winnie-the-Pooh

      Winnie-the-Pooh

      1969

    • Winnie-the-Pooh Goes Visiting

      Winnie-the-Pooh Goes Visiting

      1971

    • Winnie-the-Pooh and a Busy Day

      Winnie-the-Pooh and a Busy Day

      1972

    • The Snow Queen

      The Snow Queen

      1957

    • Film, Film, Film

      Film, Film, Film

      1968

    • Boniface's Holiday

      Boniface's Holiday

      1965

    • The Twelve Months

      The Twelve Months

      1956

    • The Scarlet Flower

      The Scarlet Flower

      1952

    • The Cow

      The Cow

      1989

    • The Adventures of Buratino

      The Adventures of Buratino

      1959

    • Zigzag of Success

      Zigzag of Success

      1968

    • The Flower with Seven Colours

      The Flower with Seven Colours

      1948

    • Geese-Swans

      Geese-Swans

      1949

    • Island

      Island

      1973

    • Little Gray Neck

      Little Gray Neck

      1948