By the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the WWII, SMF Studio plans to restore a number of cartoons of the war years and post-war time

By the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the WWII, SMF studio will restore animation films that were created during the years of hostilities and in the post-war period. It is planned that the restoration work, which includes the elimination of technical defects in frames that arose from the natural obsolescence of the film, will affect 10 films. The list of toons that are planned to be restored is currently being formed. After the restoration, the films will be shown in cinemas as part of special screenings.

‘In recent years, Russia’s oldest SMF studio has been studying and restoring and popularizing its classical heritage – for this purpose, a special department was created in the structure of the studio,’ said Juliana Slashcheva, Chairman of the Board of Directors of SMF Studio, ‘thanks to modern technological capabilities, we have returned many legendary films to the wide screen, among which are absolute masterpieces like ‘The Nutcracker’, ‘The Snow Queen’, ‘The Mystery of the Third Planet’, ‘Cipollino’, ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ and others. Thanks to regular film screenings across the country, these films reveal new facets to generations of viewers.’
According to her, in total, more than 80 cartoons with a total running time of over 25 hours were restored for cinema sessions. In addition, if possible, the authors of the original versions are involved in this work, as was the case with the ‘Mystery of the Third Planet’ – Natalia Orlova, the production designer of the painting, participated in its restoration. Currently, SMF intends to continue this activity with a series of wartime films.

As Pavel Shvedov the animation historian notes, this period in the history of Russian animation had a significant impact on its formation.
‘Films from the time of the WWII became an important stage in the development of our animation, significantly affecting its tone and subsequent exceptional humanistic orientation, and a vivid evidence of this is the tapes of the post–war years, among which there are many masterpieces and laureates of national and international festivals – earlier, by the 75th anniversary of the Victory, SMF Studio placed these paintings in networks for a wide range of viewers,’ the expert said.

Currently, the collection of classic SMF Studio films is available for viewing at all popular online cinemas, in particular, in the Okko online cinema, films from different years can be viewed for free, without a subscription.