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.

The sequel of The Nail is now available on rutracker, According to the russian-language version of Wikipedia: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%B4%D1%8C_2 It used to be lost, but not anymore!

Perhaps due to the influence of the war atmosphere, the film has many scary details, which would be completely eliminated in animated films of the 1950s and 60s. Anyway, this was an excellent animated-film in 1945, the only thing was that children at that time could not see the color version.

I'm really glad I could finally bring this one here. I've wanted to do it for a while, but the film is so wordy and the existing translations so problematic that it took longer than I'd hoped.

I think the film has somewhat odd pacing (it feels like the climax comes early, and there's a long "afterword" which explains what happened earlier), and I think the sketchy dream-sections aren't drawn as appealingly as the main part, but it nevertheless is quite funny and brilliant. All of the scenes from the "present-day" with the main villain in particular are excellent.

The director was feeling burned out after he finished it (and no wonder!), but soon found himself writing another "Holmes" script that ended up with perhaps enough material for a feature film. It was to be called "Королевские игрушки" ("King's Toys", or "Royal Toys"). He seemed quite excited about it and production was due to start in 2014.

So what happened? I have to read between the lines a bit, but I suspect the Maidan and the start of the Ukrainian/Russian conflict in 2014 had something to do with it. The first two "Holmes" movies were in Russian, and it seems that the new one was planned to be a major Russian-language project made mostly by a Ukrainian studio. Since 2014, that combination has become untenable on both sides of the border, and even more so since 2022. Aleksandr Bubnov is 65, currently lives in Kyiv/Kiev and is still active on his YouTube channel. People often leave comments praising his Holmes films and asking for a sequel, and he often replies thanking them, but saying that he doubts it will ever get made and that the current situation makes it completely impossible.

On a not-completely-unrelated note, Boris Bubnov is probably his son, and is credited with drawing/animating the dream sequences here.

I've only seen parts of this, but it seems to be a rather "average" example of the sort of commercial animated features that tend to get made in Russia these days. The reviews are mixed, though the English dub seems to have gotten worse reviews than the Russian one.

I immediately recognized the art style, as Sarkisyan had earlier been the art director for Roman Davydov's Shareholders (1963). He was also art director for a number of films in the 1950s, but he wasn't really allowed to develop a personal style yet - there was an enforced "studio style" at that time.

I think the script is quite decent but the narrator is so cheerful that it gets a bit annoying. He was voiced by the same lady who did the voice for the Hare in "Just You Wait" (Nu, pogodi!).

Larisa Malyukova (in her book Сверхкино, p.162) thinks that this film was the prototype for the popular recent "Masha and the Bear" animated series. Olifirenko was one of the few puppet animation directors (and a good one, at that) who kept working at Soyuzmultfilm during the 1990s while the studio was falling apart (most of them left to work at Christmas Films studio on the "Animated Shakespeare" series for the Brits, or at Garri Bardin's "Stayer" studio).

There's a rather detailed (perhaps too detailed) review analysing of the "hidden meaning" of this one over at Kinopoisk.

I think Olifirenko's next film is even better, but rather difficult to translate. Not sure if I'll manage it, though I'd like to try.

Here, its filmstory and diafilm. This film reminds me of Rodamus Qwerck's Delusion (Наваждение Родамуса Кверка).