As much as anything, this shows Sivokon's love of little political cartoons (of the sort you'd see in journals and newspapers), and how expressive he could be with very little. Perhaps it also shows why he was able to stay in the Ukrainian animation scene for so long - other more famous directors (such as David Cherkasskiy) relied on their teams and could do nothing when budgets collapsed in the 1990s, but Sivokon needed very little to keep working and was able to just retreat back to his earlier, simpler style (while switching to sand animation to keep costs down even more). Nevertheless, my favourite films by him are the more "lavish" ones he directed in the late 1970s and 1980s.

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I considered it, but they're not THAT necessary, are they? Just to translate the names of the paints (you can already see the colour) and type of paint? But if you have any, I'll add them!

This film is the third or the fourth by the Ukrainfilm studio, and a great improvement over their earlier works. I find it to be the first one of their films that is really worth watching, and not just as a historical curio. The animation is surprisingly detailed and quite entertaining. The propaganda is also kept to a minimum - sure, the message is basically "stay in your lane", and you might argue that it's aimed at leading cultural figures, to encourage them to stay in the USSR where "conditions are good" and not try to flee to the capitalist West where they would "get eaten alive". But there is no overt propaganda, and it's a lesson you could legitimately put into a children's book, anyway. It's a shame that the film was thought lost for so long, and that the colour version didn't survive. It shows Ippolit Lazarchuk as a very talented director whose career was cut off right at the height of his skill (thankfully, he was able to again begin making animation in the 1960s, and those are quite good as well).

Out of curiosity, does anyone know of some analogue in American (or other) animation of the scene with the very tall waves? There's another similar scene in the Soyuzmultfilm cartoon "The Returned Sun", also made in 1936, at 1:45. If I were to guess, were they both inspired by some scene in a Fleischer Studios Popeye cartoon that made its way over there?

This reminds me of certain old Newgrounds Flash cartoons or music videos; there is not much of a story and it sustains itself almost entirely on mood and vibes.

An absolutely bleak film, and one that almost certainly would not have been made by those who lived through it as they would have found focusing on the worst aspects of humanity by those trapped inside the city to be of bad taste, when it is the actions of those who did the RIGHT thing that would be seen as more worth memorializing in art. But once almost 8 decades have passed, people start to be drawn to the more shocking and macabre stories.

The NKVD records on the subject were not released until 2004. What they say is that in the worst period of winter 1941-1942, 100,000 people were dying of starvation per month, with 1.6-2 million people being the final death toll. The first arrests for cannibalism were in Dec 1941, with 9 arrests, and the total was 2105 a year later, with about 5/6 of those being for eating corpses rather than live people. So, ~350 arrests out of a ~3.2 million people city. Most were women, often unsupported women with dependent children, and 90% had minimal education.

The takeaway from the Siege of Leningrad is that in the most unimaginable circumstances, most residents did NOT resort to becoming the lowest savages and preferred to fight or (often) die rather than betray their dignity and values. But of course, there were those of whom that was not true, and that is also a part of history that cannot be erased.

A film from the perspective of a young woman (Ruditskaya was 28 years old when she directed this) about a typical day and a missed connection, but she finds beauty in her life despite that. "I didn't really need it all that much, it's his loss more than mine", she seems to be saying. The city happens to be Seoul simply because it was commissioned by a Seoul animation festival.

Visually, a good example of the kind of thing that I've noticed from many students of the HSE Art and Design School - bold design choices that require original approaches to animation and movement, quite far from realism. Also, since these are young students, many of them bring their own lives into the plots of their films. I personally couldn't relate to this one and even found it vaguely distasteful, despite appreciating the art style.

The YouTube description says that it wasn't accepted to any film festivals, with the implication that it was because of political reasons. I think that could well be part of the reason, since the Israeli cause is currently rather controversial, to put it mildly. But part of it could be that it's a very simple film that simplifies a rather complex issue. Of course, you could say that the whole job description of art (or at least, a certain kind of art) is to simplify complex issues, but perhaps this particular simplification simply didn't resonate with any of the film festival curators, and even Bardin's name was not enough to overcome that.

It also requires some familiarity with history and cultural traditions that not everybody has.

Maybe you'd want to add the subs.

Very, very sweet and child-friendly, this one. Although I find the randomness doesn't hold my interest after a while. I think it helps if you know the original fairy tales.

I find Pavlenko's films (what I’ve seen of them so far) to be very hit-or-miss. Some are quite interesting, others I would rather not have seen.