Hoffmaniada () is a 2018 Russian stop motion-animated feature film from Soyuzmultfilm. The film is one of the first full-length puppet animated film in the recent history of the animation studio. The concept and the art design was done by Mikhail Shemyakin and is directed by Stanislav Sokolov.
The screenplay incorporates story lines and characters from (Little Zaches Called Cinnabar, The Golden Pot and The Sandman), with the main character being Hoffmann himself. In particular, it will focus on the duality between the imaginative universe of his writings and his real-life profession as a government clerk (which will be based on his letters and journals). The film stars the voices of , Slava Polunin, , , Anna Artamonova, Aleksey Petrenko, and Aleksandr Shirvindt.
The film, about the life and work of the essence of German Romanticism – writer, artist, and composer Ernest Theodore Amadeus Hoffmann, has been realized at the highest level of artistry and almost exclusively by hand. Hoffmaniada is neither biopic nor dramatization but a romantic flight of fancy based on motifs from Hoffmann's diaries and fiction.
The first twenty minutes of the film were screened on 20 November 2006, in Petersburg House of Cinema and received positive reactions from various news outlets. The animated film was released in Russia on 11 October 2018 and is denoted as the entryway of the modern Soyuzmultfilm animation studio. The film was later distributed to Japan in 2019. The film has been recognized with accolades of the Golden Eagle Award, Icarus Award, and Brazil Stop Motion International Film Festival award.
Plot
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). Soyuzmultfilm previously has not produced a feature film since 1985. 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.