The Shepherd’s Daughter, Cremene the Mighty, or Dafin and Vestra, but also other heroes of folk tales converted to 2D technologies and transposed from children’s books to screens. Following the pilot animation of five stories by Ion Creangă in 2D, the Kreyon Studio animated five other pieces. Funding was provided in the framework of the EU-funded “Confidence Building Measures” Programme, implemented by the UNDP.

“Dafin şi Vestra”, “The Shepherd’s Daughter”, “Cremene the Mighty”, “Busuioc Fat-Frumos and Ileana-Cosanzeana Sister of the Sun”, “The Mighty from the nowhere World” – these are the animated stories which will be broadcast at Moldova 1 and Bendery TV, on the left bank of the Nistru river, and then made available on the YouTube channel “Kreyon Kids”.

Actors from the theaters “Vasile Alecsandri” from Balti and “Theater on the Roses Street” from Chisinau were in the creative process, along with designers, illustrators, sound directors and musicians. The soundtracks were recorded in a studio in Chisinau, and is played on violin, clarinet, tambourine, panpipes, or double bass.

The animations are made available in three languages (Romanian, Russian and English), to make these stories more popular.

“The greatest challenge was faced by the illustrators, when they had to craft sketches for the Dragons, the Old Witch or the Devils, the servants of the Dragon. They reread versions of stories from existing books, which turned out to be quite a few. Searching on the internet, we learned how fictonal characters are represented in different regions and cultures. In our animations we decided to give them an anthropomorphic shape, so that they behave and have habits like humans. Thus, the images will be easier for children to understand,” notes Ion Savin of Kreyon Studio.

The team hopes that the animations will share the same success of the first five stories. For example, the story “Goat with 3 kids” recorded over 400 thousand views on YouTube, only during half a year.

“Even in the production stage of the first five stories, we enjoyed the positive comments coming from friends, family and, later, after the broadcast, from the public. This was the moment when we set out to continue animating the stories we grew up with, which we read at the village library,” says Ion Savin.

“Our newsroom received a lot of calls from viewers, who sent us messages of gratitude for broadcasting the stories. Even the older people called us with the request to broadcast them repeatedly, so that their grandchildren could see them again,” says Janna Nastas, the director of Bendery TV.

European Union “Confidence Building Measures” Programme contributes to increasing cooperation between the residents of both banks of the Nistru river by involving representatives of civil society, the media and business community in joint projects.