14:30, Sunday November 22, 2021
Screened as part of Retrospective II
Made during the darkest days of World War II, this is the Soviet Union’s first animated feature film. It follows the story of the same name by the world-famous Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, also using fragments from his stories May Night, or the Drowned Maiden and The Fair at Sorochintsy.
A Cossack living in the southern part of the former Russian Empire (what is now Ukraine) is tasked with delivering a letter to the Empress, and must journey to the imperial capital of St. Petersburg. Along the way he stops at a fair and makes friends with a tall and wild Dnieper Cossack. Only during the night does he find out that his new friend has demonic enemies. When a demon runs off with the letter that he is to deliver to the Empress, the Cossack must chase after him through a landscape that grows more and more hellish.
