Description:

An original fairy tale about a courageous girl who rescues a red-breasted robin from the polar night and sets it free, while she herself becomes the captive.

The cartoon that gave Russian animation a new level of excellence after switching over to colour in 1945.

Pashchenko started making this at Lenfilm after finishing his critically-acclaimed first animated short, Jabzha (1938). However, the German invasion of the USSR, and the blockade of Leningrad, put a stop to that. Animation stopped being made at Lenfilm entirely, and Pashchenko eventually restarted this project at the Moscow-based studio Soyuzmultfilm with a completely different team.

The first video above and the VK video are the new restoration that was released in May 2025 by Soyuzmultfilm. The other YouTube link is the previous release of the film, which has a worse image and a slightly too-fast frame rate (25fps instead of 24fps).

Awards:
VIII ICF in Venice, 1947 - the Diploma and the Bronze medal for the best animation film.