Notable among these are the pinscreen animation films of Jacques Drouin, made with the original pinscreen donated by Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker.

While the invention of the pinscreen is often credited to Claire Parker and Alexeieff, Grinevsky-Alexeieff was the first to help Alexeieff build the pinscreen, with the help of her eight-year old daughter.

However after the first large pin screen was built, Parker and Alexeieff worked on it alone.

Although most of the commercial and art films are credited to Alexeieff and Parker, it is difficult to separate the contributions of each of the individuals who had formed Alexeieff ’ s team.

After building the first large pinscreen, Alexeieff and Parker began work on the first pinscreen film in 1931, Night on Bald Mountain, an adaptation of the piece by Modest Mussorgsky, his favorite Russian composer.

Alexeieff divorced Alexandra Grinevsky and married Claire Parker in 1940 after they arrived in the States.

When Parker and Alexeieff returned to Paris, they made a number of advertising films.

Alexeieff and Parker also continued to make films using the pin screen.

This marks the only mainstream, widely distributed film that Alexeieff and Parker were involved with.

On 7 August 1972, Alexeieff and Parker were invited back to Canada in order to demonstrate the pinscreen to a group of animators at the National Film Board of Canada.

Parker died in 1981, in Paris and Alexeieff followed Claire by a year.

Although Alexeieff and Parker strove to create serious works of art and shunned any commercialization in their films ( excluding their paid work doing advertisements, of course ), when asked what her favorite films were, Parker answered " The ones with Tom Mix and his beautiful white horse!

Later on Claire Parker and Alexeieff built the first large pinscreen which was used to film Night on Bald Mountain.

A short film based on the story was made by Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker in 1963 and used pinscreen animation.

Adding to the impermanence of the pinscreen itself, Alexeieff made no sketches for the film, composing each shot in his head and filming them immediately.

Alexeieff never made sketches before he created the images on the screen.

The only follower of Alexeieff, Jacques Drouin, of the Canadian Film Board has made several films using this technique.

Alexeieff is most famous for his invention of the pinscreen which he used to make about 6 short films.

Norshteyn wrote an essay for a book by Giannalberto Bendazzi about the pinscreen animator Alexandre Alexeïeff titled Alexeieff — Itinerary of a Master.

His mother traveled to Germany without telling the children where she was going or why and only when she returned did Alexeieff learn that his father had died.

In all Alexeieff produced 6 films on the pinscreen, 41 advertising films and illustrated 41 books.

Both of Alexeieff ’ s wives greatly contributed to the success of the films.

When the Germans invaded Holland and Belgium in 1940, Alexeieff expected to have German film producers come and ask him make propaganda films which he would have refused to do.

The pinboard on which Alexeieff created his extraordinary black and white films is an upright perforated board, three by four feet, into which a million headless steel pins have been inserted.

Directors from nations such as Poland ( Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Andrzej Żuławski ), Argentina ( Gaspar Noe and Edgardo Cozarinsky ), Russia ( Alexandre Alexeieff, Anatole Litvak ) and Georgia ( Gela Babluani, Otar Iosseliani ) are prominent in the ranks of French cinema.

Alexandre Alexandrovitch Alexeieff ( Russian: Александр Александрович Алексеев Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Alekseyev ( sometimes credited as Alexander Alexeieff or Alexander Alexeïeff or Alexandre Alexieff ); 18 April 1901 – 9 August 1982 ) was a Russian-born artist, filmmaker and illustrator who lived and worked mainly in Paris.

Alexeieff was born in the town of Kazan in Russia.

He spent his early childhood in Istanbul where his father, Alexei Alexeieff, was a military attaché.

Alexeieff had two older brothers: Vladimir, who caught syphilis from an Moscow actress with whom he had an affair.

In his unpublished memoir Oublis ou Regrets, Alexeieff wrote that he rarely saw his father due to the fact that he was often away on missions.

In his memoirs, Alexeieff describes the tribulations his mother went through after the death of her husband.

While in Riga, Alexeieff saw a film for the very first time.

Alexeieff entered the Cadet School of Saint Petersburg at the age of seven.

This early training became extremely valuable for Alexeieff later on in life when he became an illustrator.

The teacher would also ask them to portray events such as dance or a holiday feast, or read them text and have the students illustrate it, a task Alexeieff particularly enjoyed.

While in the Cadet School, Alexeieff founded a literary magazine which contained works created by students.

However, Alexeieff was able to petition for funds and also obtain access to the library which was very valuable to him.

When the Russian Revolution of 1917 began with general strikes in St. Petersburg, school was closed for three days and Alexeieff returned home to Lesnoi by train.

When Alexeieff was in his teens, he was attracted to communism.

In 1921, Alexeieff was forced to leave the city of Ufa where he had spent the summer with his maternal uncle in order to cross Siberia with a group of cadets.

During one of the crossings, a storm forced them to anchor in the French Riviera where Alexeieff jumped ship holding on to a letter of recommendation to the Russian set designer Sergei Soudeikin who was living in Paris.

Alexeieff started by working designing and painting sets for the Pioteff Theater.

When Konstantin Stanislavski came to Paris and saw her acting, he offered to have her go back to Russia but Alexandra refused, remaining by Alexeieff ’ s side.

Alexeieff became well known in this period shortly after illustrating his first rare books.