Leonid Amalrik

Born June 25 (July 8), 1905, in Moscow. Soviet film director. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1965).

Amal’rik graduated from the State Cinematography Technicum in 1928. He has been working in motion pictures since 1926 and has been with the All-Union Animated Cartoon Studio (Soiuzmul’tfil’m) since 1936. Amal’rik established a modern genre of storytelling in the Soviet cartoon.

His major films are The Gray Crawfish Tail, 1948; The Cuckoo and the Starling, 1949; The Magic Store, 1953; The Arrow Flies Into the Fairy Tale, 1955; The Cat’s House, 1958; Wheels That Don’t Fit, 1960; The Sparrow Who Didn’t Drink, 1960; The Tiny One, 1965; and The Hippopotamus Who Was Afraid of Inoculations, 1966. Many of his films (some of them made jointly with the director V. I. Polkovnikov) received prizes at international film festivals in 1949, 1950, and 1958.