Former cartoonist and children's book writer and illustrator who established his reputation as a director of children's films for adults with the 60-minute feature, "Someone's Ringing, Open the Door" (1965) which won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Festival of Children's films. Mitta's subsequent films include "Gori, Gori, Mjoa Zvezda/Shine Brightly My Star" (1970), about an actor's attempts to set up a people's theater during the Russian civil war, the satirical "A Full Stop, A Full Stop, A Comma", the thriller "The Crew", the poetic fantasy, "A Tale of Wanderings" (1984), "The Step" based on the true story of the joint efforts of Soviet and Japanese doctors to conquer polio, and "Lost in Siberia" (1991) a drama about a British scientist imprisoned in a Gulag prison camp during the 1940s which was selected for the 1991 Cannes Film Festival's Directors Fortnight.