Ave Maria!
Аве Мария!
Ave Mariya! (ru)
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Аве Мария!
Ave Mariya! (ru)
| Year | 2023 |
| Director(s) | Bardin Garri |
| Studio(s) | Stayer |
| Language(s) | (wordless) Italian Russian |
| Genre(s) | Religion |
| Animation Type(s) | Digital 2D Digital 3D Mixed Puppet |
| Length | 00:10:45 |
| Wordiness | 2.36 |
Subtitles:
⭳ Ave Mariya.2023.en.1.24fps.1789623187.srt
Date: September 17 2026 05:33:07
Language: English
Quality: good
Upload notes: 244 characters long (view)
Creator(s): Niffiwan
⭳ Ave Mariya.2023.en.1.24fps.1789623187.srt
Date: September 17 2026 05:33:07
Language: English
Quality: good
Upload notes: 244 characters long (view)
Creator(s): Niffiwan
Description:
The baby Jesus comes down to Earth from heaven, followed by his mother Mary, and learns of his destiny. Accompanied by Schubert's "Ave Maria".
Here is a description that appears in many other places online, perhaps originating from the studio: "Ave Maria is the story of choice as an act. Recognizing your path and being ready to walk this painful path to the light."
The film is wordless except for some angels shouting "Maina" at 6:40 (this term, which originally comes from Italian, is a call to lower something down in the Russian shipping industry, as well as elsewhere in Europe).
The impetus for the film came after Bardin's grandson asked him to take a break from his political films and again make something more like The Flying Ship (1979) or Grey Wolf & Little Red Riding Hood (1990). So Bardin decided to make a lullaby, and started searching for music that would inspire him, eventually settling on Schubert's "Ave Maria" (composed in 1825). The film was mostly funded through a crowdfunding campaign on planeta.ru that ran from 23.07.2021 to 20.12.2021 and gathered 63% of its 2.8 million ruble budget from 1164 supporters. The rest seems to have been provided by the Russian Ministry of Culture - the only one of Bardin's films since 2013 to have been partly state-supported. Midway through the film's production, there was an argument between Bardin and the other employees of Stayer studio about the war in Ukraine, which led to the entire studio walking out.
Despite this, "Ave Maria" was finished and premiered in Russia at Moscow's Eldar film theatre on September 30, 2023, but was not shown to the wider public for a few years while it traveled to various international film festivals (and was also sent to the Vatican; the second of his films after Adagio, 23 years earlier, to be sent there). It was finally released online on Bardin's official YouTube channel in 2026.
This was the studio's final film that used actual physical film stock; almost all the film laboratories in Moscow had closed, and Bardin was forced to switch to digital cameras subsequently.
DISCUSSION
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I'm not sure, but this is probably my favourite of the 7 short films that Bardin's made since his animated feature The Ugly Duckling in 2010. In a way, it might also be the hardest thing that he's attempted in that time, because he here is trying to pair a very gentle, heavenly almost ethereal music and painting with a down-to-earth animation technique to which those traits don't come very easily. The smallest wrong gesture, and you have a false note. Bardin himself (in the first interview linked in the description) admitted that he was scared to begin, but was so inspired by the music that he pushed through that fear. Generally speaking, I think he and his team managed quite well. This seems to have been a very turbulent production, with the entire studio production team leaving at one point. I'm not quite sure what happened after that and how the film ultimately got finished. Nor can I find out whether the film won any festival awards.