04.09 | 19:00

12+

Tickets

Alice in Wonderland (1981) and Alice Through the Looking Glass (1982) are elegant yet grotesque animated films directed by Yefrem Pruzhanskyi, based on the iconic texts of British author Lewis Carroll.

The nature of the original source material encouraged artistic experimentation. The films were primarily created using the cutout animation technique, a hallmark of the Ukrainian animation school. This technique allowed the talents of art directors Henrikh Umanskyi and Iryna Smirnova to shine fully. The film's screenwriter was Yevhen Zagdanskyi, a legendary co-author of Felix Sobolev's films and an editor at the "Kyivnaukfilm" studio.

Adapting this grotesque fantasy within the confines of socialist realist Soviet culture was only possible through animation, accompanied by an active voice-over commentary. The "Jabberwocks," "Black Queens," and "mirror milk" were too ambiguous and countercultural for the escapist era of the Stagnation Era. However, the creators of the animated films ingeniously and boldly engaged in a game whose bizarre rules subtly underscored the absurdity and totalitarian nature of the Soviet system.

The animated miniseries was produced at the request of the State Committee of the USSR for Television and Radio Broadcasting and was broadcast nationwide on Soviet television, cementing its cult status. However, it was created only in Russian, which has unfortunately led to constant attempts by Russia to appropriate Kyivnaukfilm's adaptation of Alice.

Today, restoring this and other works by Ukrainian artists to their rightful place within the Ukrainian cultural context is crucial. The Alice series stands as one of the crowning achievements of the animation department at the "Kyivnaukfilm" studio and is a vital part of Ukraine's cultural heritage.

The film is preserved in the collection of the Dovzhenko Centre and was newly scanned in 2024 by its Laboratory and Film Archive staff.

Running time 72 min.