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Хлебный день [Khlebnyy den / Bread Day] (Sergei Dvortsevoy, 1998)
Aug
10
green
The old folks pushing the cart past the hamlet's name sign. With thick brush strokes, almost too much for the small rectangle, it reads TOWNSHIP NR. 3. DP: Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev.
Green: a building or structure*
“That's all the people we've got now. We'll get there somehow.”
As of 2002, only three people lived in Zhikharevo. I wonder how the wain comes home now.
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Эффект Кулешова [Kuleshov Effect] (Lev Kuleshov, 1918)
Aug
5
Celebrating Dia de Los Muertos [on November 1 and 2, of course]: a cemetery, coffin, or dead person*
“When we began to compare the typically American, typically European, and typically Russian films, we noticed that they were distinctly different from one another in their construction. We noticed that in a particular sequence of a Russian film there were, say, ten to fifteen splices, ten to fifteen different set-ups. In the European film there might be twenty to thirty such set-ups (one must not forget that this description pertains to the year 1916), while in the American film there would be from eighty, sometimes upward to a hundred, separate shots. The American films took first place in eliciting reactions from the audience; European films took second; and the Russian films, third. We became particularly intrigued by this, but in the beginning we did not understand it.”
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Среда [Sreda / Wednesday / Wednesday 19.7.1961] (Viktor Kosakovskiy, 1979)
Jul
19
Wed
Adult twins who, like director Kosakovskiy, were born on Wednesday 19, 1961. DP: Victor Kossakovsky.
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Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992)
Jan
24
Billy Zane's birthday
Orlando (Tilda Swinton) and Shelmerdine (Billy Zane) in intimate embrace. DPs: Aleksey Rodionov & Andrew Speller.
A [favourite] Billy Zane film for his birthday (1966).
“This future of yours Shelmerdine, when it's gonna begin? Today? Or, is it always tomorrow?”
– Orlando
As ordered by Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp), nobleman Orlando remains young and traverses exotic scenery, civilisations, time, and gender.
viewРождество обитателей леса (ca 1912)
Various beetles and a grasshopper rejoice around the Christmas tree materialised by Old Man Frost.

December 25: a Santa for #Christmas
Pождество обитателей леса [Rozhdestvo obitateley lesa / The Insects' Christmas] (Wladyslaw Starewicz, ca 1912)
Father Christmas makes a Christmas tree for the people of the forest.
Дед Мороз (Ded Moroz, or Old Man Frost) is the Slavic version of Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus. An ornament depicting the old grey climbs down a child's (or doll's) Christmas tree and sets off to the forest where he plants his magic staff to create a Christmas feast for the woodland animals.
The word “animation” means “a bestowing of life“. Like his ancestor in the arts Bernard Palissy and the ancient winter solstice celebration of the return of light that long ago spawned Christmas, Wladyslaw Starewicz's Insects' Christmas breathes life into real but inanimate beetles, dragonflies, and frogs. The illusion is complete as you effortlessly forget they are painstakingly animated.
From me to you, a little Christmas treat
Director Wladyslaw Starewicz and his daughter Irina (Irene), surrounded by several of his tiny actors. Irina, writer and director in her own right, starred in her father's WW1 short “Liliya Belgii” [“The Lily of Belgium”] (1915).

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #WladyslawStarewicz #Russia #fantasy #animation #ShortFilm #Christmas #holidays #StopMotion #insects #animals #1910s ★★★★☆
#todo
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Полустанок [Polustanok / The Halt] (Sergey Loznitsa, 2000)
Mar
17
World Sleep Day
People leaning back on the train station's benches, fast asleep. DP: Pavel Kostomarov.