This is the comic version of the short story : EN & RU.

Some of the same sense of timing and movement as in Tatarskiy's earlier films, but here the effect is more horrifying rather than funny. Tatarskiy had never done a film like this before, though some of the other directors at Pilot had. Notably, his once close collaborator Igor Kovalyov, back in 1989. The surreal portrayal of the desires of the living affecting the inanimate, in particular, is very much something that Kovalyov liked to do, while some of the sense of environmental "wrongness" remind me of Svislotskiy's Hypnerotomachia.

This actually seems like the sort of film that many other directors (such as Robert Saakyants) started making starting around the late 1980s (a decade earlier among the Estonians), so Tatarskiy was rather late to it. He was initially very optimistic about the changes in the country, so perhaps it took a decade longer to hit him? This was shortly after the 1998 economic collapse, and after several calamities befell his unfinished feature film project, so he must have been feeling pretty down.

But it is very strange that this was to be his final solo film. His next ones were all co-directed with Telegin and don't really feel like Tatarskiy to me, with "Interpretation of Dreams" being a partial exception.

Perhaps it was also his last that was traditionally-animated (I'm not sure about "The Red Gate of Rashomon").

I really like the visual style and creativity here. Such a great contrast to the boring commercial, derivative stuff that the likes of Soyuzmultfilm are mostly making these days...

The screenplay is what's lacking here, but that's to be expected considering this was likely the final work for a graphic design diploma.

But in principle, that can be improved on the director's own initiative later, if someone gives her the chance. Ivan Maximov's early films (which this reminds me of) were also like this, but they gradually became more "grounded" later.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to me that anyone will give Chukhrova the same chances to develop that Maximov got (it is really not the right era), which is a real shame.

I found this one visually interesting but mostly too simplistic (how exactly does one man turn random birds on the sidewalk into fascists? Inquiring minds want to know...), although the ending was clever. Unfortunately, I think this is a case of critics (in this case, at Cannes) giving an award more because of the idea.

>>3
Thanks for the link! Interesting, though the text is necessarily short due to the Diafilm (in English, "filmstrip") format. Seems that there might be a part 2 as well, but nobody's scanned it yet.
Some other books about Ukrainian animation or by Ukrainian animation artists:

Мультипанорама. Збірник сценаріїв українських мультиплікаційних фільмів 1979 _ Multipanorama. 1979, Collection of screenplays of Ukrainian animated films
Мультипанорама - 2. Сборник сценариев. 1984 _ Multipanorama - 2. Collection of screenplays. 1984 (Ukrainian screenplays from pg.107, others before that. Includes "Hedgehog in the Fog" screenplay)

Если вы любите мультипликацию. Из творческого опыта кинорежиссера. Евгений Сивоконь 1985 (book of Yevgeniy Sivokon, director and after the 1990s later the main animation pedagogue)

Мистецтво мультиплікацii. Б. М. Крижанівський 1981 _ Искусство мультипликации _ The art of animation (about animation in general)
Искусство мультипликации на Украине. Борис Крыжановский. 1984 _ The art of animation in Ukraine (about Ukrainian animation specifically)

Мультипликация, аниматограф, фантоматика. Сборник статей. Издание фестиваля «Крок-89». 1989 (1989 KROK animation festival publication)
Каталог фестиваля анимационных фильмов КРОК 2001 _ Catalog of Animation Film Festival KROK 2001

This film was actually a children's version of The Blacksmith's Banner (کاوه آهنگر, Дирафши Ковиёнӣ, Деравш Кавиани). Most of the Šāhnāme characters and events were fictionalized in the period 977-1010, meaning at least four centuries after the Ērānšahr era. Ferdowsi's stories reflected the transition from barbarism to civilization, or the struggle for survival between savage peoples in the steppes of Central Asia, and it had little to do with modern Iran. We should also know that, during this period, all three of the most important continents on the planet were unstable politically, socially and in identity. Of course, in that context, the region that is today Central Asia was truly the epicenter of all turmoil, where people only acted with each other according to commercial interests and vice versa, which only meant war. For many centuries, this was almost the only place where there were huge armies numbering millions, followed by countless massacres : Thousands of heads were cut off, then stuffed with straw and paraded to frighten the public. Therefore, the struggle of the blacksmith Kāve (کاوه آهنگر, Kāve Āhangar, Коваи оҳангар) is the transformation from injustice to justice, or an idol-worshiping society to an age of worship of nature. The story of Kāve is unclear whether it predates or contemporaries Šāhnāme, but the name Zahāk (ضحّاک, Заҳҳок) somehow recalls king Hahav (אַחְאָב) in the Old Testament, which appeared almost a millennium before Šāhnāme.

An interesting fact is that the fictional blacksmith has been revered as the founder of the Tajik nation. An interesting fact is that the fictional blacksmith has been revered as the founder of the Tajik people, while he is less respected in Iran (modern Iranians worship Rostam). During the final uprising, Kāve used a square standard (درفش کاویانی, Drafš-e Kāvīān, "the standard of the kings") embroidered with a golden lotus. Lotus flowers are usually only white or light pink, while yellow flowers also exist but are extremely rare in reality. However, the golden lotus is one of the symbols of Zoroastrianism, what represents the image of the sun. As we know through Greek mythology, the sun symbolizes justice, faith and victory, or combined, fortune.

Thus, during the Soviet period, Tajikistan was the only autonomous republic that consistently featured Šāhnāme in cinema. That said, there were hidden rules for creating Tajikistan's identity, because before the XX-century, Tajiks were only a small and weak semi-nomadic people in Central Asia, even they could not create their own nation. Since 2006, Drafš-e Kāvīān has been restored as the presidential standard of Tajikistan. Perhaps the president of Tajikistan was also once a boy who loved this animated film ?

This film reminds me of a memory. Among the toys my father brought back from Bulgaria was a rubber goose. At that time, all rubber toys were very thin and had to be inflated before they could be used. My cousin and I took it out to play with it. I tried climbing on its back, and its stomach was immediately punctured. Even though it was only a small tear, those were years when life in Vietnam was very difficult, so even simple glue was not available. My grandfather and father tried but could not mend the tear. My father had to keep the goose in the closet for more than twenty years, because after all, it was a memory of my grandfather and the time my father used to live in Bulgaria. However, the tear has followed me throughout my life.

This small document certainly helps all of us understand the work of Ukraїnian cinematographers. Including most of the famous products of studio Kyїvnaukfilm (now Ukranimafilm).

Most versions of this film online are about 17:44 long, 25fps with bad video quality. The subtitles won't fit those versions - even if the multiplier is set to "24/25", it seems like there's ~10 seconds of film rearranged or missing somewhere because the subs start out in sync but become really out of sync later on. I haven't had time to investigate it closely - but anyway, that's why none of those versions have been added, though at least one of them is on one of the official channels.

>>1
Thanks for the heads-up, I've added it to the site.