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About Werther

MAKING THE OVERCOAT

Yuriy Norshteyn, Russia’s most renowned animator, has crafted many brilliant works, including his award-winning Tale of Tales and Hedgehog in the Fog. He is revered by animation creators across the globe, most notably Japanese masters Osamu Tezuka, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Forty years ago, Norshteyn began work on an ambitious adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat, but after completing 25 glorious minutes of the film, the project stalled and has been shelved for many years. A Japanese film crew visited Norshteyn’s studio and found there mountains of sketches, character studies and a shooting table covered with dust. When will his much-awaited work finally be completed? Norshteyn himself talks about its current status and the anguish and passion that has gone into its creation. ​

 

Presented in Russian and Japanese w/ English subtitles

Running time: 109 minutes

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YURIY NORSHTEYN

Yuriy Norshteyn is the most highly esteemed independent animation artist working today. Through masterfully built vignettes - lyrically nostalgic and imbued with a subtle sense of longing and loss - Norshteyn builds a landscape of intense emotional resonance. The lyrical visual poetry in his work is synonymous with his craftsmanship. Norshteyn uses a technique in which two dimensional flat-art is shot on multiple glass planes – a painstaking frame by frame process employed less and less by modern animators as they turn toward digital image making. In opposition, every aspect of the imagery on screen in a Norshteyn film is handcrafted. His refusal to use computers to speed the work earned him the nickname ‘the golden snail’ for his slow, ardent perfectionism. According to the Washington Post, Norshteyn is considered by many to be not just the best animator of his era, but the best of all time.

CREATIVE TEAM

Director: Ryo Saitani

Editor: Akimasa Kawashima

Director of Photography: Yudai Katoh

Film Editor: Akimasa Kawashima

Translator: Hiroko Kojima

Animation ‘The Nose’ by Kentaro Chiba

Editing and Engineering by Aya Mitsuoka

Production Manager: Hiroya Akaike

Production Assistant: Misaki Fujiwara

Supported by The Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan Produced by LAPUTA Animation School, Fusion Product Inc., Laputa Asagaya, Yujiku Asagaya

FEATURING

Yuriy Borisovich Norshteyn

Tanya Usvayskaya: studio staff

Maksim Granik: shooting director

Larisa Zenevich: a painter, an art director

Francheska Yarbusova: Norsteyn’s wife, an art director

Mikhail Aldashin: a student of Norsteyn

Mikhail Tumelya: a student of Norsteyn

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© The Art Seen, 2024

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