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Снежная королева [Snezhnaya koroleva / The Snow Queen] (Gennadiy Kazanskiy, 1967)
May
25
National Missing Children's Day
Kai (Vyacheslav Tsyupa) under the Snow Queen's spell. DPs: Vadim Grammatikov & Sergei Ivanov.
Oh boy, how to do this one without a spoiler…
Siblings Gerda and Kai are best friends until one day, the Snow Queen's mirror shatters into a million pieces. One shard pierces Kai's eye, the other his heart, and from that moment on, all he can see is evil and his heart is cold. Now taken in by the Queen, and cold to Gerda's affection, the girl tries all to get Kai, the old Kai, back.
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Медвежья свадьба [Medvezhya svadba / The Bear's Wedding] (Konstantin Eggert + Vladimir Gardin, 1925)
Sep
28
In preparation of the bear's wedding, a cook – wearing not much more than an apron and a toque blanche – stirs a huge kettle over a roaring fire. DPs: Eduard Tisse & Pyotr Yermolov.
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Аэлита [Aelita / Aelita: Queen of Mars] (Yakov Protazanov, 1924)
Apr
29
International Astronomy Day
Queen Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva) peering through her telescope. DPs: Emil Schünemann & Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky.
Like in Enrico Novelli's Un matrimonio interplanetario [A Marriage in the Moon] (1910), interplanetary romance blooms in Аэлита.
Through her #telescope, Queen Aelita spots engineer Los, a handsome Earth man, and he promptly travels to #Mars to be with her. There, Los uncovers an uprising by the Elders against his beloved queen that he vows to – in good proletarian fashion – stomp down.
Aelita*'s constructivist stage and costume design had an enormous influence on science fiction, as far as the late 20th century.
