Samoyed Boy
About Samoyed Boy
Nenets boy Chu exposes a greedy shaman who has taken the bear Chu killed and fooled the camp with an idol that seems to come alive. While Chu is hunting a walrus, the ice he stands on breaks away and drifts out to sea. Soviet sailors pick him up and take him to Leningrad. He enters a rabfak for the peoples of the North and thinks of going home to build a new life in the camp.
Cast & crew
More about Samoyed Boy
Drawn at Sovkino's third factory by Nikolai Khodataev, Olga Khodataeva, Valentina Brumberg, and Zinaida Brumberg, who also wrote it. Leonid Polovinkin is credited with the music.
Themes
Background
A 1928 Soviet cartoon in which a Nenets boy leaves the tundra shaman for a Leningrad rabfak.
Making
The four directors shared the writing as well as the drawing.
Reviews
In Frame by Frame, animator Ivan Ivanov-Vano called the graphic work strong and ranked the film among the important Soviet cartoons of the 1920s.
Music
Leonid Polovinkin is the credited composer. The copy usually seen is silent; the 1931 sound version is lost.
Preservation
The silent short survives and is on Wikimedia Commons. The 1931 sound version by N. Bravko does not.
Notes
- The boy's name in the cartoon is Chu.
- A 1931 sound version prepared by N. Bravko does not survive.
- The Russian title is Самоедский мальчик.
- Ivanov-Vano later singled the short out, in Frame by Frame, for its tonal drawing and for the boy who unmasks the shaman and leaves to study.
Scenes
- Chu shows the camp how the shaman's idol is a trick.
- The ice floe carries him away from the walrus hunt.
- Sailors land him in Leningrad.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1928 Самоедский мальчик.webm)
