Film Director: Anna Budanova

Script: Anna Budanova

Artist: Anna Budanova

Animators: Anna Budanova, Vera Pozdeeva, Anastasia Melikhova 

Composing: Vera Pozdeeva, Anastasia Melikhova, Anna Artukhova, Alexey Sazhin 

Producers: Valentina Khizhnyakova, Irina Volodina 

Composer: Damian Marhulets

Sound: Nadezhda Shestakova

Ural Cinema Studio 

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Born in Yekaterinburg (Russia), Anna Budanova studied animation at the Ural State University of Architecture and Art and works as an animator on various films. In 2013, she directs her first short, The Wound, which earns her, among others, the Prix spécial du jury at the Festival international du film d’animation d’Annecy. Her last film The Among black waves took prize of International Animation Festivals and lot of others. 

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‘Among Black Waves’ was born out of a visual idea: «the black soil and white skies in summer, and white soil and black skies in winter» (A.B.). Anna Budanova wanted to find a story for this idea, and she came across an ancient northern legend about a seal maiden. A hunter steals her fur, she becomes a simple human and cannot return to her kind. The girl marries the hunter, gives birth to a baby and seems to be content with her life, but the sea keeps calling her.

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When one watches the film, it is impossible to say with any certainty what materials were used for drawing. Complex overlapping textures create special dramaturgy. Anna Budanova started to work on this film during a three month Tokyo residency which she won in a competition. She experimented a lot with the local art materials and settled on Japanese ink, brushes, black oil paint, oil pastel, gouache. In order to save money, she used common office paper. After the art residency Anna continued to work on the film in her native Ekaterinburg with a small team of colleagues at the Ural Cinema studio.

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Anna Budanova worked a lot on creating the plastics of the main character. She was inspired by German dancer Pina Bausch and her own love for dance and music to create the main characters’ movements and the seals dance.

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The film ‘Among Black Waves’: