Todor Dinov

Who was Todor Dinov?

Todor Dinov is informally known as the Father of Bulgarian Animation. During his lifetime he wrote and directed more than 40 short animated films and several live-action feature films, and was also a popular illustrator, painter, graphic artist and caricaturist.

Dinov was born to a Bulgarian family in Dedeagach in Western Thrace and finished school in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He studied at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow under the tutelage of distinguished Soviet animators such as Ivan Ivanov-Vano. Dinov created his own first animated film, Yunak Marko, in 1955. Perhaps his best-known animated film in the West is the five-minute short Margaritka, produced in 1965. The film features a square-shaped little man trying to cut down a daisy and failing, then becoming more and more enraged as he tries increasingly brutal methods against the flower; in the end, the daisy only responds to the love of a child. Oddly, Margaritka won a prize for best children's film even though it was meant for adults.

In 1967 he was a member of the jury of the 5th Moscow International Film Festival.