A Very Old Story

Based on the famous fairytale "The Tinderbox" by Hans Christian Andersen. The main character of the film is a puppeteer who lives in a poor and gray world. He composes a fairy tale in which he himself, in the guise of a brave soldier, finds a flint and is helped by a kind wizard. The soldier falls in love with a spoiled, capricious princess who, as befits a princess, poses riddles to her numerous suitors. Her father, the king, is eager to see the soldier as her husband, as he believes the soldier has a great deal of gold. In the fairy tale, everything ends well, but in real life, not so much. "But life is not a fairy tale," his beloved girl says to him as she bids him farewell.

Cast

Oleg Dal

Soldier / Puppet master

Marina Neyolova

Princess / innkeeper's daughter

Vladimir Etush

King / Innkeeper

Georgiy Vitsin

good wizard

Vera Titova

witch / davil's grandmother

Viktor Perevalov

Prince-chimney sweep

Georgiy Shtil

Eastern Prince

Anatoly Korolkevich

doorman

Georgi Georgiu

"thick"

Lev Lemke

"thin"

Crew

Nadezhda Kosheverova

Director

Hans Christian Andersen

Novel

Konstantin Ryzhov

Director of Photography

Marina Azizyan

Production Design

Igor Vuskovich

Production Design

Andrey Petrov

Original Music Composer

Valentina Mironova

Editor

K. Polukhin

Camera Operator

Anna Tubenshlyak

Second Unit Director

Igor Belsky

Choreographer