Biography

Boris Pavlovich Stepantsev is Soviet animator, artist, illustrator of books and filmstrips. Honored Artist of the Russian SFSR (1972). Artistic director of the Multitefilm studio of the Ekran creative association (1980-1983). Member of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in the section "Artistic Animation".

Boris Stepantsev was born and raised in Moscow. Even before the war, he became addicted to cartoons, which he watched in the cinema on Strastnoy Boulevard, and decided to connect his life with comedy animation. In 1946 he graduated from the Moscow Art School and courses of animators at the Soyuzmultfilm movie studio. During his studies, he watched many trophy films, including Disney cartoons, which had a great influence on him. From 1947 to 1949 he worked as a cartoon artist. After five years of service as a sailor in the Navy of the USSR, he returned to the studio, and in parallel entered the Moscow Polygraphic Institute. In 1954 he made his debut as a director, staging one of the first post-war puppet cartoons, The Villain with a Sticky Label (1954). Then he became interested in hand-drawn cinema. From 1956 to 1962 he shot a number of comedy tapes together with director Evgeniy Raykovskiy and production designer Anatoliy Savchenko, his regular partner not only in most films, but also filmstrips and book illustrations. Stepantsev liked the genre of a modern fairy tale, in which, in particular, Petia and Little Red Riding Hood (1958) was performed, awarded the Laurel Wreath at the VII International Festival of Animated Films in Annecy (France). In 1960, Stepantsev and Raykovskiy staged Murzilka on the Satellite (1960), the first widescreen cartoon in the USSR. For this film, they received the 1st prize at the 12th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In the period from 1965 to 1970 Stepantsev shot three of his most famous works: Vovka in a Far Far Away Kingdom (1965) (another modern fairy tale), Junior and Karlson (1968) and Karlson Returns (1970). From 1966 to 1973, he directed a number of dramatic cartoons based on Russian classical music. From 1980 until the end of his life, Stepantsev was the art director of the Multitefilm studio of the Ekran creative association. There he also shot his latest project, the full-length animated-game film Assol (1982) based on the story Scarlet Sails.
- IMDb mini biography by: Bazza the Beast