>>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.

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.