{"id":155199,"date":"2025-11-26T20:31:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T20:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155199\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T20:31:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T20:31:06","slug":"andreas-dejas-hand-drawn-mushka-premieres-online-dec-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155199\/","title":{"rendered":"Andreas Deja\u2019s Hand-Drawn \u2018Mushka\u2019 Premieres Online Dec. 15"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thirteen years after its first teaser debuted<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cI wanted to create something timeless, like the Disney classic films of Walt\u2019s era,\u201d he told us in a previous interview<\/a>. \u201cHand-drawn animation still has the power to move audiences unlike anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s emotional core.<\/p>\n

Visually, Mushka echoes the rough-hewn charm of some of the director\u2019s 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. \u201cThere\u2019s a roughness to that world out there in Siberia,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to finish every leaf and rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s storied career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirteen years after its first teaser debuted online, Disney legend Andreas Deja is finally unveiling his hand-drawn directorial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-155199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}