Ion Popescu-Gopo (May 1, 1923 – November 28, 1989) was a Romanian graphic artist and animator, but also writer, movie director and actor born in Bucharest, Romania. He was a prominent personality in the Romanian cinematography and the founder of the modern Romanian cartoon school. He was, together with Liviu Ciulei and Mirel Ilieşiu one of the few Romanian film artists who won an award at Cannes in the 20th century. His film “Scurtă Istorie” (A Brief History) won the Short Film Palme d’Or for best short film in 1957.
Ion Popescu-Gopo attended (but never graduated from) the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest. He also attended animation courses in Moscow.
His career started as a designer and cartoonist in 1939, publishing caricatures and editorial cartoons in newspapers. 1949 brought his debut in the film industry with “Punguţa cu doi bani” (Bag with two coins). Since 1950 he started working for Studioul Cinematografic Bucureşti (Cinematographic Studio Bucharest) in the animation… read more
A quirky and visionary movie about the Atomic Bomb. Surreal animation, slapstick humor, gangster tomfoolery, bureaucratic satire, buff idiosyncracies, futuristic design, new wave modernist aesthetics, spontaneous blend of utopian and human naïveness, and avant-garde touch. It echoes in retrospection as a combination between Ed Wood Jr., Charlie Chaplin, Stanley Kubrick and Aki Kaurismäki. Mr. Ion Popescu-Gopo was a quixotic child creator who was at heart a misfit and an outsider.
