Know Your Indie Filmmaker: Nikita Diakur – Cartoon Brew

In this ongoing series, we profile the most interesting independent animation filmmakers working today — the artists who, through short films and other projects, change our ideas of what the medium can do. This week’s subject is Russian-born, German-based animator Nikita Diakur, whose utterly original films Ugly (2017), Fest (2018), and Backflip (2022) have garnered universal acclaim for their unique use of software glitches and defects to tell sensitive stories about equally broken humans. In a sentence: Diakur’s computer-driven shorts cleverly exploit the foibles and follies of computer software to comment – with dashes of humor and pathos – on a chaotic world. Where to start: Ugly (2017). A groundbreaking work about an abused and abandoned cat who meets an equally neglected indigenous man (some have criticized Diakur’s appropriation and stereotyping of the indigenous chief, but to his credit, Diakur presents a gentle and compassionate understanding of this character). Diakur’s use of dynamic silluations gives the film an almost interactive, improvisational feel. What’s more remarkable is how Diakur manages to create a deeply emotional story within this seemingly random and somewhat cold technological landscape. (Disclosure: This film was made with the financial support of Cartoon Brew.) What to watch next: Fest
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