Hoffmaniada

The protagonist of the film is Ernst Hoffmann, a young lawyer, musician, and writer who inhabits two dimensions at once: the imaginary world of his fictional works and the ordinary reality of a small town. During the day, Hoffmann sits behind legal papers working in the office, and then gives music lessons. At night, he composes magical stories and operas, dreaming of one day seeing his opera Undine on the big stage. He does secretly imagine transporting himself into the world of his magical fantasies. Soon, the young man could no longer distinguish between dream and reality. In the images of the heroes that Hoffmann himself penned, he will have to go through the most amazing and danger-filled adventures, which might not be merely fantasies from his own fairy-tales. The adventures include an underwater excursion, a sword-fight, and a ballet at the theatre. Ernst Hoffmann becomes the titular character student Anselm who is featured in a romantic film with meetings with heroines in different times of his life: the first-in the beautiful Olympia, and the second-in the magical snake-girl Serpentine, and the third-in the posh Veronica. However, Ernst is subjected to the sorcery of an old merchant, the charlatan Coppelius and the watchmaker Paulman. Sandman the dreamy student is also obsessed with Olympia, a soulless clockwork-automaton and daughter of physicist mechanic Paulman. The wise royal archivist Lindhorst exiled from Atlantis patronizes Ernst and his literary hero, the student Anselm. Turning into a Fire-Salamander, he resists Ernst's plans to woo his daughter Serpentina. They make sinister plans against the main character. Love and magic intrigues are intertwined and happily resolved at the end of the film. == Voice cast ==

• as Ernst Hoffmann / Anselm • Aleksey Petrenko as Coppelius / Sandman • as physicist Paulman / Top secret parrot • Alexander Lenkov as the Old Witch (in the first version of the cartoon) • Slava Polunin as Coppelius in the image of the pastor • Anna Artamonova as Serpentina / Veronika / Olympia • Nikolay Kondrashov (voice) • (voice) • (voice) • Aleksandr Shirvindt as Lindhorst / Salamander == History and technique ==

Soyuzmultfilm was ready to revive their animation studio. The establishment from Moscow like other businesses was beleaguered by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Despite the challenges, in 2001, Soyuzmultfilm confirmed about a grand project based on the works of German 19th century author E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1882). The project combines the best traditions of classic Russian animation and modern technology. The film is Soyuzmultfilm's entry to the digital media industry and a turning point in its history. The film became one of the largest full-length and technically complex cartoons in the studio's recent history that took over fifteen years of production. The studio invited Mikhail Shemyakin to the project as animation director. Hoffmann is associated with the music of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Almost all of the children in Russia know who Hoffmann is because of his fairy-tale The Nutcracker. The word "Hoffmaniada" () is part of the Russian lexicon meaning absurd or preposterous. Mikhail Shemyakin the acclaimed theatre artist and sculptor from Saint Petersburg was acquainted with Hoffmann's fairy-tales ever since a young age. Shemyakin is a resident of East Germany, and his favourite city is Königsberg (Kaliningrad) where his father was commandant just before World War 2. There he would grow up reading about Hoffmann and Brothers Grimm. As an artist, he can discern an Hoffmann-like influence in all the cities in Russia he would visit. In 2001, Shemyakin already was an Hoffmann artist who created sketches for costumes, sets, and masks for the ballet The Nutcracker for the Mariinsky Theatre. Animation director Stanislav Sokolov stated Mikhail Shemyakin's direction gave new impetus to the art of drawing and animation at Soyuzmultfilm. The veteran animator from Soyuzmultfilm who has previously experience working with Soviet Union artists Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Boris Nemensky worked on one of the last animation films produced in the historic Soyuzmultfilm studio in 25 Dolgorukovskaya Street, near the Novoslobodskaya metro station. Sokolov was interested in such a production ever since the 1970s. The most active period of creativity occurred in 2005, when Shemyakin in the suburbs of New York City, made about 20 sketches of Hoffmaniada dolls in a short time. The main production designer of the film was Elena Livanova. Livanova created images of minor characters and turned some of Shemyakin's sketches into working sketches, and also translated the sketches into technical drawings for making dolls. Elena Livanova was assisted by the artist Nikolay Livanov. In total, about 150 dolls were created for the film. The film was first intended as three independent film adaptations ('', The Golden Pot, and The Sandman). However, the final film combines all the tales into a single narrative. With the exception of the popular Nutcracker, most of the characters of the German classics of Hoffmann are rarely filmed in cinematic format. Central to the film will be the character, E.T.A. Hoffmann himself, who is rejuvenated as a poor student Anselm who travels and interleaves the many fairy-tales described by the film. The film is framed as a story within a story style where the author E.T.A. Hoffmann himself is transported into the magical world of his own fairy-tales and lives with his own characters. The film depicts the author as participating in his own plots where good triumphs over evil. The film makers wanted to unearth the inner emotions and thoughts the author himself would have undergone when writing the dramatic stories such as The Sandman''. == Production ==

Development In November 2006, a preliminary twenty minute exhibition was held in Petersburg House of Cinema, featuring the main cast of about twenty puppets. Each puppet took no less than a month to make. The full film will have over 150 puppets, some of which will appear on the screen for only a few seconds. In the spring of 2008, a group of puppeteers created the dolls first before the script was made. The actual filming period for the rest of the film began in the summer. The animators wished to convey different layers of creativity and believed the film will be realized with utmost care. So they believed a slow production cycle while focusing more on details. In 2008, after the completion of the sketches for the images of cartoon characters, the next stage in the production of dolls and filming process began. Initial reaction kept referencing the similarity of facial expressions between the puppet Hoffmann and director Stanislav Sokolov. On 3 June 2011, Soyuzmultdesign published an official booklet for the upcoming film, which says that preparation for shooting the second and final part of the film began on 3 March 2011, and that the final 90-minute film would be released in May 2014. Also, the official English name was revealed to be Hoffmaniada. On 23 July 2013, it was reported that the film is scheduled to be released in 2015. In December 2013, Shemyakin said in an interview that despite the lack of budget, enthusiastic animators would pitch in to help realize the project for free. He expressed hope for completion of the film in two to three years. In 2014, director Stanislav Sokolov revealed the project initially split into different arcs would be combined into one feature film. Revival studio gracing one of the last animated set pieces of the film created there before its closure. The work was exemplary in context to Soyuzmultfilm history that usually featured about seventy people team. Hoffmaniada was recorded by a dozen member team with the talents of art director Elena Livanova, cameraman Igor Skidan-Boshin, two multipliers, two artists Ekaterina Bogacheva, Natalia Varlamova, assistant artist, props with others working outside the studio. On 29 November 2016, an historical finish to the history of Soyuzmultfilm was marked, as the final shots of Hoffmaniada as well as the final animation piece for the studio was recorded at the historical Dolgorukovskaya Street studio before moving to new premises provided by the Ministry of Culture. The final shot featured actor puppets being recorded in a miniature orchestra box designed in the style of German theatres of the 17th century. The official release of the full-length animation film in 2018 marked Soyuzmulfilm's new entry into the animation industry. Themes The film will juxtapose documentary elements with the fantasique. The film will not only be an exhibition of hyperbolic fantasy characterizations of Hoffmann's fairy-tales such as the fantasy mermaid origins of the princess but also will be based on a biopic of the author. A duel of fates between Ernst and his character Sandman is the central conflict of the story whom Ernst knew ever since he was a child when he heard his nanny tell the tale of the nocturnal visitor who sprinkles sand in the eyes of children. The creators of the film presented a classic three-dimensional puppet animation film with digital image processing which they believe is more efficient than virtual 3D animation because the characters are molded by the hands using different materials and is inexpensive. Despite initial predictions that by the 1990s, 3D would replace the art of stop-motion films, the animators were pleased that students and connoisseurs of puppet animation would return to the studio to resume the art form in the 2000s. The film used all the techniques that digital puppet animation afforded to the animators when the movement started in the 1980s. The technique of replaceable articulation or the use of replaceable lower jaws of the character conditionally imitating speech was a major innovation in puppet animation. Camera Shooting of the puppets are carried out with a Mark II camera in 16:9 format and in 4K resolution, suitable for a large screen. Light filters were used to avoid the puppets having a rough background. Acceleration of stop motion puppets is an art that the studio perfected by working with the different dolls. They carefully perfected speed and center of gravity such as the fall of a leaf in its own wavering velocity, or the speed of a doll that moves only millimeters in each frame in order to avoid ragged movements. Cameraman Igor Skidan-Bosin, together with other technicians, invented an innovative suspended moving camera system that can drive right inside the scenery. The system is powered by a computer. Using special sliders, the camera can capture dynamic movements such as a revolution around dancing puppets. == Release ==

Theatrical Hoffmaniada visited many cities of Russia including Siberia in 2014 as part of the film train program known as the VGIK-95 that was intended to educate the citizens of the Russian federation on Russian cinema. The train VGIK-95 departed on 23 September. On 11 February 2016, for the 240th anniversary of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Regional Historical and Art Museum of Vienna opened an exhibition Meetings with Hoffmann featuring Hoffmaniada. The exhibit featured details on how Hoffmann was influenced by Mozart, to the point where he named himself Amadeus. The film was anticipated for many several screenings in cinemas by the end of 2016. Due to post-production the official premiere was scheduled for the fall of 2018. In 2017, International Youth Film Forum in Sochi, Stanislav Sokolov presented excerpts from Hoffmaniada. Soyuzmultfilm was honored to present the film in Hoffmann's own homeland, Germany on 18 February 2018 at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival. At the festival, the film was appraised by distributors from France and Germany. The Russian House of Science and Culture in Berlin also constructed an exhibit about the film during the same time as the Berlinale. At the 13th Open Russian Festival of Animated Films in March, Hoffmaniada officially premiered in Russian soil for the first time. The festival director remarked the film was the highlight of the event. At the June 12, festival Mirror in the Ivanovo Region, for the first time an animated film in Hoffmaniada was enlisted for the competition program. The film became part of the cultural program at the IV Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in 2018. On the first day of October, the campus of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo opened an exhibition of the film. Four days later, Novoekino released a documentary featuring the delicate production of the film. Six days later, Hoffmaniada premiered in wide-release format. On 24 August, director Sokolov presented the film at the Brazil Stop Motion International Film Festival in Recife. In the interview, the director stated the final cut removed many scenes and hopefully a DVD home video release will include the final scenes as well. In December, the film's sets and dolls were exhibited at the Nicholas Roerich Museum in Moscow. The film was presented at the Russian cinema Gorky Fest of 2019. On 5 May 2019, the film premiered in TV at the channel Russia-K. In that same year, Hoffmaniada released in Japan. The film was the highlight event at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. After the premiere in Russia, the film is currently being presented in a variety of film festivals for international distribution. At the Cannes Film Festival of 22 June 2020, Hoffmaniada was shown to the film market. In the Toronto International Film Festival of September, the film was presented by Soyuzmultfilm. In the 41th virtual edition of AFM in November, Hoffmaniada was presented to the North American audience. Animation news website Cartoon Brew particularly commended about the film at the AFM, and denoted it as one of the seven most notable projects at the AFM. Critical response Kinoafisha reviewer Veronika Skurikhina couldn't comprehend how a Tim Burton of Russia film would ever exist, but if such a person existed, it would be Stanislav Sokolov of Hoffmaniada. The review also "noted that the crooked, ornate, metaphorical, aristocratic, and simply old Hoffmann language is almost completely preserved in the voice-over." Yegor Belikov review from TASS, remarked the film is an accurate description of Hoffmann's "phantasmagoria without fear of getting lost in them, and their dedication inspires respect." The zealous effort put into this work makes "Soyuzmultfilm one of the last studios in the world that would be capable of such large-scale work." Anastasia Ivakhnova of 25 Card, with 4.5 stars remarks the film is Sokolov's magnus opus. The film managed to describe how Hoffmann was "so closely intertwined with his fantasies, and soon, despite the apparent external dissimilarity of Ernst and Anselm, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish the world of conditional reality from fictional from and to Atlantis". The execution of the concept "is enough to make Hoffmaniada take its rightful place among the best animated works of the studio and mark the return of "Soyuzmultfilm" to the big screen." Denis Stupnikov for Intermedia giving the film 4 stars noting the puppets exude the style of the art form of Mikhail Shemyakin. The review noted the "light music" that went into the film such as incorporation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's own opera Undine. Maria Tereshchenko of Kino Teatr, believed the film is like a "completed work of another era" in the 2000s, when the film was anticipated to be completed. "Hoffmaniada conveys acutely and accurately the feelings of a romantic, artist, poet, locked in everyday reality, but living not at all by it, but by a phantom life" and is an anachronism that "could only arise in the timelessness in which it was shot, when the management of the Soyuzmultfilm studio changed every few years, and the director had the highest degree of freedom from the dictates of officials and financiers." Daria Budanova of Mir Fantastiki, believes Hoffmann's stories are difficult to adapt because 'the motif of the mirror image of the real world and the fantastic world, their inevitable interpenetration, permeates all of Hoffmann's work. That is why his fairy-tales are so difficult to film. However "Stanislav Sokolov succeeded" and "managed to understand the genius of German Romanticism." In terms of the puppets, "outwardly, they resemble figures from Tim Burton's Corpse Bride: detailed and outrageously caricatured images, which, however, are almost devoid of computer processing, and therefore unnatural cartoonishness. They seem to turn into real live actors." French review Little Big Animation noted the areas where the film could have improved such as "the rhythm of the editing." Also the viewers are "immersed oneself so far in the mirror game" despite a "lack benchmarks and subtitles no longer follow." KinoKultura review by Mihaela Mihailova states the film "is auteur cinema meets bedtime story—a tad bewildering, but nevertheless an enchanting fairy-tale that should fascinate both young and mature viewers, albeit for different reasons". The lighting of the film is evocative of F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). A Japan Cinema Today review from Kaoru Hirasawa gave the film 4 stars remarking, "It's like a dream you see with your eyes open." Accolades == Tie-in material and adaptations ==

In October 2013 at the Mipcom television market in Cannes, it was reported that, in addition to the feature film, a series of 26 13-minute episodes called Tales of Hoffmann will be made for television, each one based on a particular Hoffmann tale. The series will use the same puppets as are used in the film. The remaining Hoffmaniada's puppet pavilion is still featured in the exhibition hall of Soyuzmultfilm in Moscow. Although all of the major details are empty, the eponymous Hoffmann is still shown playing the piano. The city of Kaliningrad, where the legends of Hoffmann's fairy-tales were originally penned, welcomed the donations of dolls, sets, and sketches from Hoffmaniada. They are now preserved at the Kaliningrad Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit ''Hoffmann's City. Secrets of Two Worlds'' that opened in October 2020, within the newly renovated basement under the former Königsberg Stock Exchange is thought to be a gateway for citizens to remember their rich cultural heritage. In addition, Soyuzmultfilm and Kaliningrad pledged to cooperate in the field of animation. == See also ==