Cardinal Fishes ( Апогоны )

1988 · animation · Lubov Apraksina

Ecological film about cardinal fishes and human caused water poluton. Cardinal fishes, or Apogons are a sea species that live on a depth of 200 meter or deeper, so not well known.Ecology & polution became a popular Soviet subject in the period shortly after the Tchernobyl disaster, when the film was made. Bizarre is also that Moldova is a land-locked county, there is no sea or seacoast there. Moldovan animation was rather backward compared to most USSR nations, Moldova is the poorest European country, and still bullied and kept poor because of it by the Russian federation. The country was part of Romenia. Further in the past it was a Turkish Vazal state then captured by the Russian Empire, then in 1917 briefly independant, By the Molotov Ribbentrop pact it was appointed to the Stalin Russia influence sphere, and thus in the second worldwar conquered by Russia, in 1940-1941 and from februari till november in 1944 ,yet till 1953 there was a resistance movement fighting against the Russian occupation. 1941-1944 it was conquered by Romania at the time allied with Hitler Germany. About 300.000 jews at the time were killed or depoerted by Romanian forces. There was a resistance movement acitive against the Romanian occupation from 1941 till 1944, just as there was after 1944 till 1953 a resistance movement against the Russian occupation.1940 1941 & 1944-1953 large parts of the population were deported to the Urals, Kazachstan and Siberia. and the resistance soldiers were executed or imprisoned In 1946 some 566.000 inhabitants on top of that died of a famine or dystrophia, In the post war years many Russian speaking Ukrainians, Belarussians and Russians were imported in the country as part of a Russification program, of the demished population, leading to that around 72% of the population are actually ethnic Moldovans these days of a total population of some small 3,5 million. Directed by Lubov Apraksina , written by V. Bogatu