ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 15, 1994                   TAG: 9401150288
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: 11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: N.F. MENDOZA LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DISNEY CHANNEL CASTS SPELL WITH `WILD SWANS'

Handsome princes were often the rescuers in the earliest days of fairy tales. Not so in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans," an early coup for feminism thanks to its young protagonist, Princess Elise, who saves her brothers as well as her father's kingdom.

A new version of the fable, which was animated by Klassika Studios in Moscow, premieres on the Disney Channel this week as part of its "Stories to Remember" series.

Actress Sigourney Weaver narrates and lends her voice to more than a dozen characters.

As in Klassika's "The Snow Queen," which aired on Disney last year, "The Wild Swans" centers on the heroic deeds of its female lead. In the beginning, everything is right in Princess Elise's perfect world, where she lives comfortably with her brothers and father, the king. Then the proverbial wicked stepmother enters the picture.

The new queen, who doubles as an evil sorceress, is determined to get rid of the king's kids. While the king is away, she banishes Elise to the home of a peasant family and turns the boys into wild swans, who fly far away from the kingdom. When the lonely Elise learns of her brothers' transformation, she is determined to break the spell and reunite her family.

" `The Wild Swans' is a story that touches my heart and says things that I would like my children to understand," notes producer Joshua Greene. "The Russian artists who did the show felt the same way. Good stories do that; they cross all cultural boundaries."

Greene, vice president and producer of Lightyear Entertainment, went to Russia in 1990 looking for animators when he found what he calls "renegade animators," former staffers of government animation shops. 


 by CNB