Russian Oscar hopeful believes in the power of animation

ST PETERSBURG: Konstantin Bronzit may be one of Russia’s most celebrated animators, but he still gets the jitters during awards season.

The 60-year-old writer-director is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film this year for the 15-minute “Three Sisters”, competing alongside productions from the United States, Canada, Ireland and France. The winners will be announced on March 15.

Bronzit has received two Oscar nods already for films released in 2007 and 2015, but getting recognition from the Academy never gets old, he told Reuters in an interview in St Petersburg, where he works at one of Russia’s largest animation studios.

“Every time, the chances of getting to Olympus are basically zero, and every time it’s a miracle,” Bronzit says of receiving another Oscar nomination.

His new film, which follows three sisters whose harmonious lives on an isolated island are upended by the arrival of a sailor, took him five to six years to make, Bronzit estimates. He carried the characters around in his head on weekends and holidays, brainstorming different bits of plot.

“There is this endless, full-fledged internal work going on,” he says. “Nothing comes together quickly and easily.”

Bronzit, who has been working in animation since the 1990s, says he is amazed at how many young artists still seek to join what he calls a “time-consuming, difficult profession.”

Even as Russian studios receive generous state support, they too have been hit by what Bronzit casts as a “global crisis” in the animation industry, in part caused by a glut of content.

“It’s always an up-and-down situation,” he says. “We will dig into this problem, reach the bottom, and then new production will begin again.”