Oscar Isn’t Much Help to Russian Animator

The world of Academy Award winner Alexander Petrov is not the wonderful one of Disney.

Petrov is one of the most accomplished animators working in film today, yet the big budgets and hype that accompany the “Toy Story” pictures or the latest cartoon musical from Disney are for him a fantasy.

Even in his native Russia, even in his hometown of Yaroslavl, Petrov receives little recognition or remuneration. Few people know his work.

That might be changing. But like Petrov’s filmmaking, the process is a slow one.

A boost came in March, when Petrov’s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” won the Oscar for best animated short film. The nomination was Petrov’s third, the film charming enough to win.

“The Oscar hasn’t changed my life much,” said Petrov, who seems uncomfortable talking about the award. “People think you get all this money. No. You even have to pay your own way to attend the ceremonies.”

Petrov, 42, laughed. He was sitting on a work stool in his studio, off a narrow hallway in the corner of a local factory’s film club. Yaroslavl has a strong tradition of filmmaking and film study, and before the collapse of the Soviet Union several factories sponsored such cinema clubs.

Many of those clubs have since closed. Government funding for the arts has plummeted to almost nothing. But film buffs in Yaroslavl have kept some traditions alive, scraping together private funds and grants from abroad to teach a new generation of Russian filmmakers.

Petrov’s studio at the Seagull film club is more like a closet than a room. He greets a pair of visitors by chucking papers off his only chairs. He pounds dust off the seats. He puts on the water for tea.

A drawing table dominates the room. It is here that Petrov paints each scene on a glass plate, using oil as medium and his fingers as brushes. His camera operator shoots the painting. Petrov will then change the painting for a new shot or, more often, wipe the glass clean and start anew.

The result is scenes that can explode with color or brood in darkness and shadow. Characters flow more than they move, like the water that often plays an important thematic role in Petrov’s work.

“It is an easy technique for me,” Petrov once said of the method that other animators employ but of which he has become the master. “It is the shortest and fastest link between my heart and the image I am creating.”

For the 22-minute “Old Man and the Sea,” Petrov figures they made at least 20,000 paintings. The project took 2 1/2 years.

For the first time, Petrov made his film for the 70-millimeter format of Imax. It was funded by Japanese investors for more than $2 million, and produced by Pascal Blais Inc. of Canada, where Petrov and his family lived while making it.

It was also the first time that Petrov worked with a second artist. His son, Dmitry, now 21, carried some of the load.

Some of Dmitry’s drawings are tacked on the walls of Petrov’s studio. A promotional poster for “Old Man and the Sea,” featuring a photograph of Hemingway but not of the film’s creator, lies on a shelf. Other drawings, too, are scattered about, including some from a television commercial that Petrov was preparing for chocolate.

The studio is as humble as the thin, bearded man who inhabits it.

“What I am doing is a job for 20 people, but then it would mean to forget about the painting,” Petrov said. “My technique really doesn’t allow for more people. . . . Your own idea simply cannot dissolve into 40 hands.”

Petrov acknowledges being curious about working in a commercial studio, with a big budget and a huge marketing department behind the film. But he figures his personal, sometimes idiosyncratic approach would never fly in Hollywood.

Instead, Petrov would settle for some exposure for his films and others like them.

As it is, most of Petrov’s work gets passed around on coveted videos. Showings of his previous films, including “The Cow and the Mermaid,” usually draw small crowds of people already in the know.

For now, “Old Man and the Sea” will not even be available on video. “I don’t like video. Every time I have to show something I suffer; you lose nuances, which are important,” Petrov said.

“There is no special interest to show animated films in theaters,” Petrov said. “There used to be a good tradition, maybe not respectful enough, of playing a kind of warmup role for other movies, like before some rock concert. But now, there is simply no way to see auteur-type stuff.”

Petrov hopes local officials come through on a pledge to find space and funding for a bigger studio that could also serve as a school for aspiring animators. His Oscar victory captured the government’s attention, and he and his family were greeted as local heroes upon their return from Canada.

“The governor sent an orchestra to the railway station to greet Petrov--unknown beforehand but famous afterward,” the director recalled with a wry smile.

Petrov’s home remains the Seagull film club, however. And the only way to see his work in Yaroslavl is to get hold of some tired videos that had been made in France.

“Some people think my work is not for a broad audience,” Petrov said. “But I have shown my films in different countries, and everywhere I could see some people laughing, some crying.

“Films are not made to sit on a shelf,” Petrov said. “There needs to be somebody who will help bring them to the audience.”