Andrei Khrzhanovsky


Andrei Yurievich Khrzhanovsky is a Soviet and Russian animator, documentary filmmaker, writer and producer known for making art films. Married to philologist, editor and script doctor Maria Neyman, he is the father of director Ilya Khrzhanovsky. He was named People's Artist of Russia in 2011.

Career

He rose to prominence in the west with his 2009 picture Room and a Half starring Grigory Dityatkovsky, Sergei Yursky, Alisa Freindlich) about Joseph Brodsky. Although Khrzhanovsky's 1966 dark comedy There Lived Kozyavin was clearly a comment on the dangerous absurdity of a regimented communist bureaucracy, it was approved by the state owned Soyuzmultfilm studio. However, The Glass Harmonica in 1968, continuing a theme of heartless bureaucrats confronted by the liberating power of music and art, was the first animated film to be officially banned in the Soviet Union.

Selected filmography