L'Étrange Festival - XXIIIrd edition - September 6 - 17 2017

Tale of tales

Skazka skazok - 1979 - Color - 28 mn Original version with French subtitles - USSR - Animation

Direction
Youri Norstein
Screenplay
Youri Norstein, Ludmila Petrouchevskaïa
Scenery
Frantcheska Yarboussova
Images
Igor Skidan-Bossine
Music by
Mikhaïl Meerovitch
Voiceover by
Aleksandr Kaliaguine

A bored wolf pup goes to observe humans during their family holidays, a wedding, or in a park when birds come to eat.

The great Yuri Norstein adapts a popular russian lullaby, as a pretext to relate an avalanche of memories from his own life, transcended into lyrical visions : voted all time best animation film in 1984.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Youri Norstein directed this animation masterpiece in 1979. It was shown at the Lille Festival and unfortunately for me, my animated short film “The Merry-go-round” was part of the same screening. It really put me off making animation films.

Years later, I presented « A Very Long Engagement » in Moscow. I used the opportunity to pay homage to Norstein. I was immediately invited to his flat in the Moscow suburbs. I saw the rostrum in the basement, and was offered blinis and vodka…

And he was surprised to learn that years before, in the days of the USSR, I had sent him a copy of “Charlie Mensuel” with four pages about his film, that I had not only written, but also illustrated with still photos shot from a 35mm copy lent by the embassy, by inventing a special apparatus, with the help of Bruno Delbonnel, who later became a great camera operator. All this to say that of course Soviet customs had confiscated the magazine copies, so that he only discovered them on that day, and that both of us, somewhat drunk, shed a few tears.

Saturday 9 September 2017 - 14:30 - Showroom 300 - Screening presented by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet

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