Thirteen years after its first teaser debuted online, Disney legend Andreas Deja is finally unveiling his hand-drawn directorial debut Mushka to viewers worldwide. The 28-minute short, which recently completed an award-winning festival run, will debut on major VOD platforms on December 15.
Deja, whose Disney career spanned 30 years and included the development of iconic characters such as Scar, Jafar, Gaston, and Lilo, describes Mushka as a deeply personal return to the 2D animation that first inspired him. “I wanted to create something timeless, like the Disney classic films of Walt’s era,” he told us in a previous interview. “Hand-drawn animation still has the power to move audiences unlike anything else.”
The film follows Sarah, a young girl uprooted from Kyiv to Siberia, who discovers and raises an orphaned tiger cub. As the tiger grows, so do the dangers surrounding him, forcing Sarah into a coming-of-age journey defined by courage, empathy, and sacrifice. Deja drew on his lifelong love of animating animals, especially big cats, to shape the film’s emotional core.
Visually, Mushka echoes the rough-hewn charm of some of the director’s favorite films like 101 Dalmatians and The Jungle Book. Deja rejected traditional cleanup processes to preserve a lively line quality and collaborated with background painter Natalie Franscioni-Karp to craft expressive, intentionally unfinished environments. “There’s a roughness to that world out there in Siberia,” he explained. “We don’t need to finish every leaf and rock.”
Featuring a sweeping score by Fabrizio Mancinelli and one of the final songs composed by Disney legend Richard M. Sherman, Mushka represents a rare modern showcase for traditional, hand-drawn animation, and a milestone in Deja’s storied career.