The first
Romanian film animation was
Păcală în Lună by
Aurel Petrescu (5 April 1920).
Ion Popescu-Gopo is the founder of the modern Romanian cartoon school. The early days of Romanian animation developed in completely unsuitable, purely artisanal conditions, unlike in the West, where there was a real industry for the production of animated films. This fact, along with the lack of distribution, unfair competition from foreign animations, lack of personnel, and the advent of sound, led to the relative marginalization and then disappearance of domestic animated films in the 1930s. The most prolific cartoonist was
Aurel Petrescu, with 11 cartoons confirmed by the press of the time and over 70 other animations, most of them commercials. He had the courage to continue production in the sound era, probably copying the tracks of foreign films. The first Romanian animated film was "Păcală în lună" by
Aurel Petrescu, premiered on 5 April 1920. (Cinematographic Dictionary - Cornel Cristian and Bujor T. Râpeanu - 1974, p. 23) The first cartoon preserved in the national archive is called
Haplea and was created by
Marin Iorda in 1927, based on a similar character in his cartoons. The difficulties that arose during and after its production led Iorda to abandon any plans for a sequel. In 1936, he only made some animated diagrams for Professor Dimitrie Gusti's film, which was presented at the Romanian pavilion of the International Exhibition in Paris the following year. ==Selected list of Romanian animation==