The Overcoat

The life and death of titular councillor Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg.

Children and Matches

A cut-out animation warning for children about the danger of fire and playing with matches, far from the grim warning of your typical PSA and anticipating the complicated human psychology of Norshteyn's subsequent work. And, no doubt, there is a metaphor aimed at the power structure. 1968-69 was a crucial period of transition for the animator, breaking out of the pack at Soyuzmultfilm and beginning to script and co-direct films. Not listed on imdb, this is one - if not the first - of his first solo works as director.

Good Night, Little Ones!

"Good Night, Little Ones!" is a Russian-language children's show created by Alexander Tatarsky & Eduard Uspensky that was first aired in 1964. This listing in particular is for Yuri Norstein's sequence that he created to air before/after each episode (which only ran for a year from 2000-2001 before it was discontinued due to being "too dark" for child audiences). Norstein stated that it took 1.5 years to hand-draw and animate this sequence