Fyodor Khitruk

Fyodor Savelyevich Khitruk (Russian: Фёдор Саве́льевич Хитру́к; born May 1, 1917) is one of the most influential animators and animation directors in Russian animation. Khitruk was born in Tver, Russian Empire and 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 The Story of a C... more

Fyodor Savelyevich Khitruk (Russian: Фёдор Саве́льевич Хитру́к; born May 1, 1917) is one of the most influential animators and animation directors in Russian animation. Khitruk was born in Tver, Russian Empire and 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 The Story of a 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, Chelovek v ramke (The Man in the Frame) (1966), the... less