When One Door Opens Another Shuts: Perestroika and Proto-Feminist Films

The reforms of the 1980s ushered in a new group of female animators. Not surprisingly, as directors these women created more proto-feminist animated films and took on more leashership roles within the industry.¹ The idea to restructure the Soviet economic and political system was first introduced in 1979 by Brezhnev during the era of Stagnation, but it was not enacted upon or promoted as a policy until Mikhail Gorbachev came into office. Gorbachev was relatively young, only fifty-four, when he took office as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985. He was also part