”He made his debut when he was 19. Back then, he was a young caricaturist and he made his debut at the National Cinematographic Office in 1942, when he was animating maps for the war films made during those years. Later on, in the early 1950’s he made his debut with an animated film, a cartoon shot in the classical Disney-style. He soon made a break with this style, taking animations intended for children to another level. He left behind animated fables and moved on to philosophical meditations, with his works becoming more metaphorical and mainly intended for adults. “

Referring to the idea of abandoning the Disney-style of making animated films, Gopo said: ”When I realized I couldn’t reach his technical perfection, I started to make anti-Disney films. Consequently there was no beauty, no color, no candor. The only domain in which I could ‘attack’ him was the subject.”

In its turn, the Gopo style was much appreciated - and even decorated at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957. Manuela Cernat again:

”When watching that film, the jury in Cannes was surprised to find that a film which lasted only a few minutes could contain a sequence which concentrated the history of mankind, from cavemen to space travel, into a few seconds. The film ‘A Brief History’ by Ion Popescu Gopo, which won the Palme d’Or, also launched his famous animated character, a little man holding a flower. This character, drawn in a very minimal style, would make Gopo world famous.”

“A Brief History” was followed by other animated films, having Gopo’s ‘Little Man’ in the leading role. Ion Popescu Gopo also made other genres of films, most of them with fantastic touches. Manuela Cernat has further details.

”Later on, he also created feature-length films, featuring actors, and for decades he constantly vacillated between animated films and feature films with actors, sometimes elegantly combining the two cinematic formulas. This was the case in ‘Maria Mirabela’, a film which won over both adults and children. He continues to be regarded as a trailblazer in world animation and a huge personality of Romanian cinematography. He was a huge man, both figuratively and literally, leading the director Gh. Vitanidis to cast him in the role of Tsar Peter the Great in the films ‘The Romanian Musketeer’ and ‘Cantemir’, after a novel by writer Mihnea Gheorghiu.”

Gopo was also elected to top positions in filmmakers’ organizations: vice-president of the International Animated Film Association, president of the Association of Cinematographers of Romania (a position he held from 1969 until his death in 1989), and director of the film section of the World Health Organization. In Romania, the success enjoyed by Gopo’s Little Man led to the foundation of Animafilm studio in 1964, focusing exclusively on the production of cartoons. Although Ion Popescu-Gopo didn’t find an animation school in the proper sense of the term, as his style was unique, he encouraged other Romanian directors to work in this direction.