Animation in the Arab World

Since hundreds of years the Arabs inspired the worldby their unique stories and fairytales of ArabianNights and the legends of Sinbad Aladdin Ali Babaand Scheherazade. Many poets musicians painters andcineastes used at least one element from these greatimaginations and creativity in their artworks.The Arabs weren't away Animation too; and when Disney(1901-1966) started to make his first featureanimated film Snow White and Seven Dwarfs in 1930sthere was a small group of Russian carpenters whoworked with their Egyptian partners to create a filmfor the Egyptian Ministry of Defense as amobilization film for the national army against theNazi army attacking in the World War II. The group ofcarpenters was Frenkel brothers and the film calledNational Defense and was released before featurefilms in cinema halls in Cairo and Alexandria in late1939 to be one of the oldest animation films notonly in Egypt but in Africa and the Arab world.