>>1
There was earlier surviving animation in Azerbaijan: There was one Azeri animated film made in 1965, available on YouTube.

A fairly by-the-book adaptation of what seems to be a well-known Tajik fairy tale. Mansurhojaev chooses a serious tone, as opposed to the irreverence of his earlier How the Cat Fought the Mice. The art looks nice, and the use of sand is an innovative way to solve an animation problem. The well-known Russian fairy tales got their "classic" animated adaptations in the 1950s, but for the Tajik fairy tales that only began to happen a few decades later. It looks to me like the studio was not trying to push the envelope - but then again, neither was Soyuzmultfilm in the 1950s. It was building the foundation, instead. Unfortunately, Tajik animation didn't get much of a chance to evolve further, as it stopped being funded just a few years later when the USSR collapsed, and the country descended into a brutal civil war.

Thanks for the interesting context, Cynir.
>Perhaps the president of Tajikistan was also once a boy who loved this animated film ?
Unlikely, considering he was born in 1952, so would have been 35 when this was released.

For my part, I think this film is overly-ambitious for the short running time and feels rushed. That said, there are some unforgettable scenes in there, so it does succeed perhaps the most important way.

The second film on the site from Irina Kodyukova, who had directed the much-beloved Yuletide Stories in 1994. A darker and more pagan/magical version of the famous Russian fairy tale, whose classic animated adaptation was the one directed by Olga Hodatayeva in 1953. The art style is sometimes crude but often striking and beautiful. I really like the witch's walk at 1:02 - how every foot that comes down is from a different creature. I was able to identify some of the music, but not all of it. In particular, I didn't find the name of the nice song that appears at the end, when the witch's disguise is revealed. Actually, I didn't find entirely clear how the little goat was able to make the dispel the disguise. I suppose his horns pricking the sailor somehow broke the spell?

One of the first Tajik animated films. I think that the art style here is remarkable. Despite the high stylization, it is very clear what is going on, though this is helped a lot by the story being very simple. It kind of reminds me of Jirtdan (1969), the earliest surviving Azeri animated film, but I think this one is more polished. It's a shame that it's not available in higher quality.

Unfortunately, the director moved to work at Soyuzmultfilm in Moscow immediately after, and had to abandon this technique that she had developed. It may have had some fans at Tajikfilm, though, because most of their films ended up being made with cutout animation (though not with stained glass).

There is not much dialogue, so the translation was not overly hard.

Another one of those films that we are only able to see because of the volunteers of the RuTracker animation scanning project who've been buying up and scanning many old Soviet 35mm reels and Betacam cassettes, searching for rare animation. This one is a well (if a bit drily) told romantic fairy tale about the virtues of patience, kindness and purpose (on the male side), and faithfulness, devotion and competence (on the female side). I guess this might be based on certain Tajik or Persian folklore, but I haven't found what specifically, and the title card makes no mention of that, so who knows...

It's the fourth film by Masurhojaev on the site, and probably the one with the most "realistic" (dare I say, "socialist realistic"?) art style. It wouldn't be out of place in the early 1950s, except that of course the Soviet Union didn't use cutout animation in the 1950s, nor was there any animation being produced in Tajikistan then. The art is well-done, but I do think that it shows that cutout animation isn't ideal for certain scenes, as the film often resorts to fading in and out between successive frames to "hide" just how few frames per second there really are.

For the translation, the Russian word "shchastye" has been alternately translated as "happiness", or "(good) fortune". A few Tajik-language words have been translated into their closest English equivalents: "Kishlak" (a highland village used as a summer mountain pasture) has been translated as simply "village". "Tubeteika" (a Tajik skullcap) has been translated as "cap".

The date on animator.ru is 1985, but the film itself says 1984.

Another Tajik animated film by Munavar Mansurhojaev, once again based on Persian folklore. This one doesn't use only cutout animation. I like it less than the films he directed both the year before and the year after (especially "How the Cat Fought the Mice"), mainly because the screenplay seems weak and doesn't quite make sense. The boy seems to go from easily frightened to brave almost instantly, and the reason is never really explained or examined.

I'm happy to finally translate another animated film from Tajikfilm here, only the second on the site! I think this one is quite good. Great art direction (the central Asian SSRs really seemed to like this style of cutout animation... it was also a big thing in Uzbekfilm) and screenplay, and a memorable "Central Asian" flavour to the whole thing.

It bears only a rough resemblance to the original story. Both the ancient tale and the film have the cat pretending to turn over a new leaf (originally, he pretends to be religiously pious and repentant, but in the cartoon he instead pretends to be vegetarian), the mouse king declaring war, there being a big, bloody battle, and the mice triumphing only for the cat to then escape. But many other details differ.

Unique to the film are the little hero mouse (in the original story, there is a mouse who gets drunk and brags, not an actual hero), the cat's "ladies" (two more-or-less loyal, one very much not), the cat being in a castle, and the cat saving his skin at the end through trickery (in the original story, he rips the ropes tying him through sheer strength). One of the biggest differences is that the mice in the original story lose at the last minute despite apparently having won. In the film, it's more of a draw - the cat escapes, but loses his castle. Yet he remains in one piece, has his females about him and seems relatively happy. The worst off is actually the Siamese cat, who (as a result of her betrayal) ends up being disliked by both sides, and gets her tail cut off and told to "fish for her own food". So the moral of the film (as I read it) ends up being something like "being a traitor is the worst thing you can be (even if it's an unjust cause that you're betraying)".

I'll add that, despite all of his murder and treachery, I find it hard to really dislike the cat. He has a roguish charm and his tricks are so obvious that the mice almost deserve what comes to them. Besides, the mice's failure is in large part because the only mouse that seems able to outsmart the cat has not been made their leader. Despite the other plot differences, that is very much in the spirit of the original story: though many of the mice are courageous and brave, and they may win a battle or two, and even be on top for a while, their innate traits mean that cats always have the advantage and eventually regain their standing.

Not exactly a fable that is "communist" in spirit, but perhaps it was a little prophetic...

In the 80's she made 13 excellent puppet animation, I translated a few of them, thus far I only published Grandfather Mazai and the hares (ДЕДУШКА МАЗАЙ И ЗАЙЦЫ) the 3 Romka, Fomka & Artos are planned for August. On the DVD Romka, Fomka & Artos are 10 of them in excellent condition. She really is an overlooked and forgotten animation director, who turned to animation later in her life (1915-2002)

This is one of those nice cartoons that just kind of fell through the cracks. Made by a regional studio in the Ural mountains, lacking even an entry on animator.ru... it is a good geometry introduction for kids, and I think the character design and animation are very polished. Though the ending promises a continuation, it does not seem like the director ever made one. Someone else at the studio directed a 1976 sequel, but it is not as good.

It was unusually difficult to find who the director was - it seems that the Sverdlovsk Film Studio in this period often just listed everyone as "film crew" in the credits without differentiating their roles. Some film databases list it as being directed by Nina Pavlovskaya... but she only started directing in 1976 (that aforementioned "sequel" was her first film...), and was not even in the credits here, so I figured it could not have been her. Eventually, I found an off-hand mention in an article on the studio's website confirming that it was directed by Galina Turgeneva. She began to direct films at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio in 1957, but this apparently included educational/documentary films as well, so I have no idea when she directed her first fully-animated film. Maybe this was it. She has been described as "the founder of Sverdlovsk animation", and she set up the studio's (non-educational) animation division in 1973, just after finishing this film.

The translation presented no special difficulties, although I will note that the Russian word for "angle" and "corner" is the same, so that part of the lesson is just a little more obvious.