Festival > Juries > 2012 | 2011 | 2010

RUMEN PETKOV

Rumen Petkov is a cartoon and animation artist and director, born in Sofia in 1948. He says he never thought he'd be involved with drawing but Fate led him to graduate from Sofia Art School in 1967. He is one of the major comic book artists of the comics magazine „Rainbow“ – several generations of children's favourite magazine. His influence spawned a new generation of young Bulgarian comic book artists as Vladimir Nedialkov, Koko Sarkisian, Ivan Kirjakov and others. In the autumn of 1969, he started working at „Boyana“ Cinema center as an animator. At that time, Animation Film Studio „Sofia“ still did not exist. At the Cinema center, he was influenced by animators and directors, such as Asparuh Panov, Konstantin Pavlov, Boris Angelov, Todor Dinov, George Chaushev and others, as well as by the famous Bulgarian animator Donyo Donev, who remains Rumen's teacher of humor, story-telling, rhythm and art direction.
He makes his debut as a director with the film "Miss Island" (1973). As an animator, director and art director Rumen has made a myriad of films, many of which received awards at international animation festivals such as the Grand Prix at the International festival of animated film in Ottawa, Canada. The award, which Rumen values the most however, remains the "Palm d'Or" he received at the film festival in Cannes in 1984, for the film "Marriage", completed in collaboration with Slav Bakalov. Rumen Petkov created the first Bulgarian feature film "Treasure Planet" (1982). His main animator for this film was IAFF Golden Kuker's own festival director Nadezhda Slavova. Rumen also directed the TV series „The Adventures of Choko the Stork and Boko the Frog“, popular in Bulgaria the '70s and the '80s. In 1974, without interrupting his work, Rumen graduated in Bulgarian Philology at Sofia University „Kliment Ohridski“, which helped develop his skills in story-telling and drama. He continues to direct films in Bulgaria up until 1990 – the year when Animation Film Studio "Sofia" ceases to exist. Seeing no other option for a future in the field of animation in Bulgaria, Rumen Petkov leaves Bulgaria for Los Angeles with his family. Preparation meets opportunity and his luck leads him to begin work as an animator just a month after his arrival in the US. His American colleagues who are familiar his work in Bulgaria, help him out. He works for a small studio called "Animation Cottage", where he focuses on 30-minute films for ABC television.
In recent years, Rumen has worked as a writer, storyboard artist and director of numerous episodes of TV series, such as "Tom and Jerry," "Johnny Bravo", "Dexter's Laboratory," "Cow and Chicken" and others. Since 1998, alongside his work on animation projects, he teaches Direction in animation at the CALARTS Institute in California. For animation, he says, „Animation will never die because it's like music, because it's like running with the wind, because it's funny.“

Major projects include:
MTV's Liquid Television - "Specialist" (animator)
Klaski Csupo - "Real monsters", "Duck man", "Rugrats" (storyboard artist and character design)
Cartoon Network - "Johnny Bravo", "Dexter's Laboratory," "Cow and Chicken" (director)
Universal Studios - "Woody Woodpecker" (director)
Warner Brothers - "Tom and Jerry", "The Mummy" (timing)