course work of Filipp Yarin for animation director, 2nd semester (class of V.N. Zuykov and A.P. Zyablikova)
It seems that the area of state defence has suffered some serious lapses.
Until today we never thought about it - everyone just minded their own affairs.
However, recent events are becoming a bit alarming.
An Old Sheet of Paper
I'm seeing crowds of armed people filling all the neighboring alleys.
But these are not our soldiers.
They look like the nomads of the far north.
In some unfathomable way, they've reached the capital.
However it be, they are here, and their number grows with each passing day.
As is their wont,
they've set up camp right beneath the open sky.
The sight of residential houses repulses them.
They've turned what was once a quiet, clean square into a pen for horses.
Our way of life, our customs, are as unfathomable to them as they are irrelevant.
For this reason, they'll neither give nor receive any signs.
You can break your jaw, twist your arm out of its socket; they still won't understand you
nor will they want to.
My own resources have also considerably diminished.
But the urge to complain disappears when one considers the lot of our butcher
As soon as he delivers his product,
it immediately disappears and is devoured by the nomads.
Our butcher is so frightened that he does not stop delivering the meat.
We're all sorry for him, and we've pooled money to at least keep his head above water
If the butcher doesn't give them meat, who knows what else they'll turn to?
But even now, with them receiving meat every day,
nobody knows what idea they'll get into their heads next.
Not long ago, the butcher decided to save himself some labour,
and brought a bull to the square alive instead of butchering him.
He never dared try that again.
I spent a whole hour lying on the floor in the back room of my workshop,
having covered myself with pillows, clothes and blankets,
so I wouldn't hear the cries of that beast.
Jumping on it from all sides, the nomads tore the living meat from it with their teeth.
It had long been quiet when I finally dared to look outside.
Exhausted, they sprawled around the remains of the bull
like drunks around a barrel of wine.
It was just then, unless my eyes deceived me,
that in one of the palace's windows appeared our Emperor.
He stood before the window with bowed head,
and observed what was happening in front of his palace.
"How will this all end?" we ask each other.
How much longer must we bear this torment?
The Imperial palace has attracted the nomads to itself,
but it does not know how to make them go away.
The gates are always closed.
The guard that once regularly patrolled the streets
now prefers to stay behind the barred windows.
They've delegated the defence of the fatherland to us,
craftsmen and shopkeepers
but this task is beyond our power.
Nor did we ever claim that we could carry it out.
What has happened is a mistake from which we are dying.
screenwriter, director, animator Filipp Yarin
music Lyudmila Isayeva, Anna Podduyeva, Ilya Kuznetsov
sound Pavel Morozov
instructors V.N. Zuykov, A.P. Zyablikova, V.A. Fomina, V.P. Kolesnikova, N.P. Stepantseva
production director Ye.P. Turtanova
VGIK 2010 subtitles by Niffiwan