Sometimes this series would feature new directors who then didn't go on to direct anything else of note. This is the case for Orlova and Bogomolova, directors of the first one - they were animators before and they went back to being animators after (although Orlova briefly returned to directing in 1994). I can't say that their film stands out all that much.

The next one, by Galina Barinova, is a short and low-effort entry, as are most of hers at this time (her best period began about a decade later).

Finally, the one by Garri Bardin - his second film. He came to the studio as a voice actor in 1973, and directed his first film in 1975, which caused (in Bardin's words) a lot of resentment from others at the studio as he was perceived as being an outsider who had "jumped the line". This has an early example something that would become common in Bardin's later films - noticing and capturing some ugly aspect of human nature, and encouraging (directly or not) the viewers to do better. This sometimes led to beautiful and sublime films such as Adagio, but not always! Sometimes, I think it's the director's distaste and bitterness for people around him that come through stronger.

I have mixed feelings about this one. The only time I've ever seen someone tying a tin can to an animal's leg is in this cartoon - I don't think it was especially common, at least not in my neighborhood. By showing this ugly behaviour in detail in the first place, the cartoon also teaches kids that this is something that you can do, even though the boy is sorry at the end. I suppose I also didn't find that ending too believable - it's too saccharine. On the other hand, I like the art style and the "play" aspect of a battle in which the two sides transform into various creatures. This sort of "duel" has also appeared in a few other films in this series: "Mosaic" from #1, "The Game" from #16 and "Who Was First?" in #27 (not on the site yet).

>>4
>But this dub, which was made by DEFA, is currently lost
Interesting. It wasn't even that long ago. I bet it'll be found one day when there is the will to find it. Just like those early Ukrainian animations from the 1930s (1, 2) that had long been thought lost in WW2 were suddenly discovered by DEFA in their archives in the last few years...

A sweet and well-done children's film about how one can make friends even far away from home. It also shows a little of various parts of the world and what polar explorers do. It's quite pretty to look at. This is cutout animation, but animated in such a smooth way that you can barely tell. E.g. to animate talking, the head is replaced with each frame, so that it looks very smooth. This way, they could use each type of animation ("moving existing shapes" or "redrawing") for the types of movement that it is best suited for.

They do something similar in many American stop-motion puppet movies today, by 3D-printing many different heads and replacing the character's head for each frame, so that it ends up looking like CGI (e.g. in "Corpse Bride" or "Coraline"). In this case, it looks like a children's illustrated story book come to life. They also used this type of mixed cutout-cel animation at Ekran studio in those years, but seemingly not so much at Soyuzmultfilm.

This film apparently also had a german dub made, according to this: (https://www.defa-stiftung.de/filme/filme-suchen/taina-tretej-planetu/) But this dub, which was made by DEFA, is currently lost

>>1
There was earlier surviving animation in Azerbaijan: There was one Azeri animated film made in 1965, available on YouTube.

A fairly by-the-book adaptation of what seems to be a well-known Tajik fairy tale. Mansurhojaev chooses a serious tone, as opposed to the irreverence of his earlier How the Cat Fought the Mice. The art looks nice, and the use of sand is an innovative way to solve an animation problem. The well-known Russian fairy tales got their "classic" animated adaptations in the 1950s, but for the Tajik fairy tales that only began to happen a few decades later. It looks to me like the studio was not trying to push the envelope - but then again, neither was Soyuzmultfilm in the 1950s. It was building the foundation, instead. Unfortunately, Tajik animation didn't get much of a chance to evolve further, as it stopped being funded just a few years later when the USSR collapsed, and the country descended into a brutal civil war.

Thanks for the interesting context, Cynir.
>Perhaps the president of Tajikistan was also once a boy who loved this animated film ?
Unlikely, considering he was born in 1952, so would have been 35 when this was released.

For my part, I think this film is overly-ambitious for the short running time and feels rushed. That said, there are some unforgettable scenes in there, so it does succeed perhaps the most important way.

The second film on the site from Irina Kodyukova, who had directed the much-beloved Yuletide Stories in 1994. A darker and more pagan/magical version of the famous Russian fairy tale, whose classic animated adaptation was the one directed by Olga Hodatayeva in 1953. The art style is sometimes crude but often striking and beautiful. I really like the witch's walk at 1:02 - how every foot that comes down is from a different creature. I was able to identify some of the music, but not all of it. In particular, I didn't find the name of the nice song that appears at the end, when the witch's disguise is revealed. Actually, I didn't find entirely clear how the little goat was able to make the dispel the disguise. I suppose his horns pricking the sailor somehow broke the spell?

One of the first Tajik animated films. I think that the art style here is remarkable. Despite the high stylization, it is very clear what is going on, though this is helped a lot by the story being very simple. It kind of reminds me of Jirtdan (1969), the earliest surviving Azeri animated film, but I think this one is more polished. It's a shame that it's not available in higher quality.

Unfortunately, the director moved to work at Soyuzmultfilm in Moscow immediately after, and had to abandon this technique that she had developed. It may have had some fans at Tajikfilm, though, because most of their films ended up being made with cutout animation (though not with stained glass).

There is not much dialogue, so the translation was not overly hard.

Another one of those films that we are only able to see because of the volunteers of the RuTracker animation scanning project who've been buying up and scanning many old Soviet 35mm reels and Betacam cassettes, searching for rare animation. This one is a well (if a bit drily) told romantic fairy tale about the virtues of patience, kindness and purpose (on the male side), and faithfulness, devotion and competence (on the female side). I guess this might be based on certain Tajik or Persian folklore, but I haven't found what specifically, and the title card makes no mention of that, so who knows...

It's the fourth film by Masurhojaev on the site, and probably the one with the most "realistic" (dare I say, "socialist realistic"?) art style. It wouldn't be out of place in the early 1950s, except that of course the Soviet Union didn't use cutout animation in the 1950s, nor was there any animation being produced in Tajikistan then. The art is well-done, but I do think that it shows that cutout animation isn't ideal for certain scenes, as the film often resorts to fading in and out between successive frames to "hide" just how few frames per second there really are.

For the translation, the Russian word "shchastye" has been alternately translated as "happiness", or "(good) fortune". A few Tajik-language words have been translated into their closest English equivalents: "Kishlak" (a highland village used as a summer mountain pasture) has been translated as simply "village". "Tubeteika" (a Tajik skullcap) has been translated as "cap".

The date on animator.ru is 1985, but the film itself says 1984.