Description:

A visual reflection based on Osip Mandelstam's 1933 poem, written during a time when the Stalinist regime was tightening its grip on Soviet society.

The film explores the poet's inner world within his newly acquired Moscow apartment - a space that felt less like a home and more like a fragile, paper-thin trap filled with lingering fear. As a cat wanders through the room and snow falls outside, the animation captures the tension between domestic stillness and the era's pervasive political dread. The 2D visual style emphasizes the claustrophobia of a period where "all walls had ears".

The original poem can be read here. In the film, a few stanzas are left out and several words are changed. The poem was translated to English by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin in 1973 (in The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam), and by Ian Probstein in 2022 (in Centuries Encircle Me with Fire). Both English translations have issues, though, so it has been redone for this site. Please read the subtitle notes for more details.