Two cosmonauts arrive on a barren world and begin a clean-up operation. In the course of their duties, they revive the planet’s civilisation and discover the real reason for its devastation- thermonuclear war. Produced after the peak of tensions in the late Cold War, this animated short from Armenfilm reflects a muted optimism that humanity might- just- avoid total destruction. It also demonstrates the strength of animation under the Soviet system, where even the smaller state studios were capable of inventive but technically polished work.
Tag: USSR
A requiem for a Russian peasant woman, Maria Semionovna Voinova. The film is in two chapters. The first chapter consists of an impression of Maria Semionovna, scenes of the colours of summer time: hay–making, bathing in a river, work in the flax fields and a holiday in the Crimea. The second chapter, set nine years later, is in black and white and deals with how Maria Semionovna’s life ended. The mood is one of a sad and elegiac narration.
Dramatic short animation based on the song of the same name (“For You Armenia”/”Kez Hayastan”) composed by George Garvarents and performed by Charles Aznavour. The song is dedicated to the memory of the devastating earthquake that struck the Armenian region of the Soviet Union in 1988.
An old man meditates by the sea. A little girl is building a sandcastle. A young couple is frolicking on the beach. The day fades into the evening, as do the memories of youth. Pika päeva ehavalgus (The Light of a Long Day) is a poetic short film about the course of life, shot on 16mm. It won medals at amateur film festivals in Yugoslavia, Austria, Finland, Lithuania and the Baltic Union Republics for the humanistic treatment of the subject and the best directorial and acting work.
The film tells about two brother doctors, one of whom operated on a boy, and the other assisted him. A blood transfusion was necessary and the surgeon poured the boy blood from the wrong group, as a result of which the boy died, and the brothers’ life changed. The first became a kerosene salesman, the second – the chairman of the City Council.
This film of constructivist composition, shot in Moscow in 1987 depicts a series of maps of tramway electrical wire networks framed by the sky, shot from below. Sometimes the top of a tram slides along the frame. The distances between the electrical cables across from the video camera introduce subtle contrasting variations between the black lines that streak the neutral field, reducing the city to a geometric and dynamic construction.
A story of a wire man who carried the idea of protecting himself from people around him to an absurdity by turning his wife and dog into barbed wire and thus isolating himself from the surrounding world.