A 12-year-old immigrant from Avdiivka became a laureate of an international film festival. He created a cartoon out of wool

Matvii Hlazunov, a 12-year-old migrant from the town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, became one of the winners of the Children's KinoFest international film festival. His cartoon Melissa was recognized as the best Ukrainian children's film of the year. The teenager was the main director, cameraman, and set designer.

There are no drawings in his animation: all the characters, props, and furniture are made of wool, according to Skidnyi Variant with reference to Dom.

Melissa is the main character of a six-minute cartoon created by Matvii Hlazunov. The boy and his parents were forced to move to the village of Shpakivka, Kharkiv region, after the start of hostilities in Donbas. Besides them, four other people live there.

To have some fun, he mastered the animation in the genre of stop-motion and came up with the idea of making a film about a good witch who got lost in the woods. Matthew draws inspiration for his cartoons when he leaves home.

It took almost a year to create Melissa, it took seven months to prepare a script, scenery, and filming took three months. The boy took pictures on a smartphone.

The most difficult was the creation of decorations and dolls. Marvii was shown how to roll wool by his mother. But before Melissa found her final image, she had 20 predecessors.

"At first I had a poor result, then I watched all sorts of videos of how to make dolls. I made a light plasticine head for her, a shape then piled wool on her. And I got such a doll with hands made of wire. I wrapped her and rolled wool," said Matthew.

The father of the young animator is a professional musician. He tried to recognize music as a cartoon. He contemplated a grand composition, but his son rejected his idea and asked to create a couple of short melodies.

When the cartoon was ready, Matvii sent it to the Children's KinoFest. The winners were announced online. The boy watched everything from home.

"I was hoping for the best-animated film, for the audience award, but no one announced anything. And when I was upset, hoping for nothing, they said my name," said Matthew.

The boy received UAH 15,000 in prizes, which he had almost spent on creating a new animation. He bought a few pounds of wool and ordered everything you need for decorations. The characters will be woolen again. There will be about 20 of them and they will be animals. Vladyslav Yama and Ruslana Pysanka previously agreed to voice the characters. The work has already begun; Matvii felted the main character of the goat.

Matvii is going to shoot a new cartoon in January. The director hopes that this work will be no worse than the previous one and he will send several applications to various festivals in Ukraine and abroad.