Myniku in India

The text version of an interview of Mikhail Korobov - the producer of the animated film “How Nyanchedo Myniku Taught a Man to Fly” for the "Vigorous Morning" program (OGTRK "Yamal Region", on March 12, 2019). A conversation about participation of the animated film in the program of theTribal Animation Film Festival (TAFF) in India.

Leaders: Good morning all!

Alexander Teslenko: In studio you are met by Alina Oleynik and Alexander Teslenko. Today on March 12, Tuesday.

Alina Oleynik: Excellent new day, judging by a weather forecast. And it will be excellent practically in all the district that cannot but please.

Alexander Teslenko: Anyway it was necessary to suffer vagaries of the weather very little. In several weeks it will become notable more warmly, and there and down-padded coats can be taken off. In a word – spring!

Alina Oleynik: Great! Let's smile to this fact and we will begin to wake up. Get already out of the beds if all of you still there. We will return to studio very soon. Do not switch!

Alexander Teslenko: Recently Yamal animation pleased with just excellent news. The animated film “How Nyanchedo Myniku Taught a Man to Fly” was included into the program of the First international Film Festival of animation cinema of the small people. Imagine!

Alina Oleynik: Today the author of this animated film Mikhail Korobov became the guest of our program. Hello, Mikhail!

Mikhail Korobov: Good morning!

Alina Oleynik: As a matter of fact, tell us, please, about this animated film and about the one who such to Myniku?

Alexander Teslenko: Because I, frankly speaking, did not watch the animated film. To the shame and, here somehow it did not happen. I do not represent who such to Myniku.

Mikhail Korobov: Anything. When it in about thirteen years is taken on some festival, can be then look?. I am one of producers of this animation movie. Actually there are two versions of this movie – 2005 and 2007. In India the version of 2005 was shown.

Alexander Teslenko: And what version is pleasant to you more?

Mikhail Korobov: Both are pleasant to me because I laid a hand to both. Just the first version is made on the basis of a soundtrack of a radio performance which was made by the director Sergey Zavalny and his children's drama school on "Radio of Yamal" in 2001. And in four years this soundtrack formed the basis of the animated film.

Alexander Teslenko: Who such Myniku?

Mikhail Korobov: Myniku? Myniku is a spirit of a song of the North.

Alexander Teslenko: It not some specific being? I that is why imagined that it is a raven?

Mikhail Korobov: It is one of images. It can accept shape of a bird. And so in it – a many-sided interpretative component of its image: spirit of a song of the North. Bringing messages. There is something in it, information … The one who begins history. This character … Ekaterina Steponaytis, the author of an image and that who "found out" it in volumes of ethnographic literature it in more detail and competently would tell about it.

Alexander Teslenko: But we will return to a festival. It already ended, you know results?

Mikhail Korobov: The festival took place in not competitive format. Therefore for us the fact of participation was a big award. As we understand that films live long: on movies, on the Internet, on some material carriers, on DVDs disks, on some demonstrations. But festival demonstration in thirteen years?

Alina Oleynik: What interested organizers of a festival when choosing the animated film?

Alexander Teslenko: Some color? History? Plot? Or, maybe, unusual posing?

Mikhail Korobov: I think that, first, the festival took place in the city of Shillong. It is the Northeast of India. I do not remember how the state is called. The state is called "the Indian Scotland". Colonialists left from themselves such heritage. Judging by those photos that I saw on the Internet, there very high pines grow in this area. The film festival took place on the basis of the local university in the capital of the state. Here. And the organizer of a film festival is a faculty of anthropology of this university. That is our film made on the basis of the Nenets mythology, not just on the basis of folklore fairy tales for children namely the mythology based on scientific texts somehow "resonated" at organizers. It is the first moment.

And the second why as it seems to me, selected Myniku because professor of anthropology of this university Tara Douglas, the organizer of a festival, she, having watched the animated film, received though some idea of the Nenets mythology: what in it there are elements, deities, entities mythological.

The character was born in 1998. Ekaterina Steponaytis, this Myniku thought up him. Or it to her was? She drew it and thought up the comic book. That is, the character, the hero appeared. In animation, at cinema there has to be a hero. It cannot be any story about anything or a sketch. There has to be a hero who somehow acts, somehow proves, is transformed. Here such to Myniku appeared in 1998. And the animated film appeared in seven years.

Alexander Teslenko: It is remarkable that to Myniku still lives. Lives life, roughly speaking. And later such huge number of years. I think that he will live not one decade. And we will remember it.

Mikhail Korobov: He will precisely endure us!

Alexander Teslenko: Thank you that were with us this morning. I hope that in next times we will meet much earlier, but not in thirteen years.

Alina Oleynik: And then we will continue a conversation. Thanks!

Mikhail Korobov: Thanks!

Press service of animation studio "Myniku"

TOPIC LINKS

How Nyanchedo Myniku Taught a Man to Fly (Script of the animated film 2005)

Russia and India will make and show together movies and animation (2015)

Northern myths. Dedicated to the great potential of animators! (2019)

Official response from the Yamal-Nenets Department of External Relations regarding the first Tribal Animation Film Festival (2019)

Programme for the Tribal Animation Film Festival-2019 (updated 20 Feb)