The Value of a Library
Another way these studios have tried to generate revenue is by licensing their massive archives, much of which have never been exploited outside the Eastern Block. These efforts have met with varying degrees of success. Kratky has been the most sluggish in exploiting its library, which consists of an estimated 1600 animated films, including masterpieces from puppet animation legends like Jiri Trnka and Hermina Tyrlova. One problem has been Kratky's financial instability, which has contributed to a revolving door of sales executives during the past decade. Another snag is the investment it will take to catalog and make quality video transfers of all the films. Rights clearances are also a challenge, since during the Communist era some films were licensed to long term contracts.

For ten years in the 1970s while a new modern facility was being built, Kratky animators worked in this structure -- proving that beautiful surroundings are not needed to make such classics as Nudnik, Popeye and Krazy Kat! Courtesy of and © Gene

Other Eastern animation studios have had greater success in getting their library films into distribution. Early next year Rembrandt Films and Image Entertainment will be releasing on both DVD and VHS, five hours of animation from Zagreb Film, including such classics as Satiemania and Ersatz, the first non-U.S. animated film to receive an Academy Award. But the most successful studio in this regard has been Moscow's Soyuzmultfilm, which in 1992 licensed much of its 1200-film library to the California-based company, Films by Jove. Jove has subsequently spent more than US$3 million to restore the prints digitally, and, for the children's films which make up most of the library, add new music and redub with the voices of such Hollywood stars as Amy Irving, Tim Curry, Jessica Lange and Gregory Hines. Films by Jove has also footed the large legal bills required to successfully defend the library from the piracy of Sovexportfilm, which in pre-Perestroika times exercised the state's monopoly on foreign trade.