Hedgehog in the Fog — 50 years

      Half a century ago, in 1975, director Yuri Norstein and artist Francesca Yarbusova released Hedgehog in the Fog — an animated film often called a philosophical parable about the search for the meaning of life. Despite difficulties with distribution, the film quickly won over audiences. And in 2003, at the Laputa festival in Tokyo, 140 directors and critics recognized it as the best in the history of world animation.

      As the portal Obyasnim.rf reports, Norstein’s method became known as “alternative animation” — his filming technique was that unique. To create the ten-minute film, the team of artists assembled a special multi-tiered rig: on transparent films they manually moved dozens of parts to achieve the illusion of depth.

      They created the fog in the frame using semi-transparent film, and the water from cellophane, which came alive under the spotlights. For some scenes they used combined shooting: real water was combined with painted leaves. Even the dust on the glass, settling naturally, became part of the artistic technique — with its help Norstein created the effect of rotating branches.

      Particular attention was paid to the music: composer Mikhail Meerovich spent more than two months composing six minutes of melody. And the image of the Hedgehog was long sought by artist Francesca Yarbusova — before the final character emerged, more than a hundred sketches were created.

      In 2024 the Bank of Russia issued a commemorative coin featuring the character from Hedgehog in the Fog. The 25-ruble coin joined the “Russian (Soviet) Animation” series. Its reverse is adorned with a colored image of the Hedgehog against a backdrop of fog and landscape. The mintage totaled 150,000 pieces; the Moscow Mint carried out the minting.

      However, in January 2025 the film’s production designer Francesca Yarbusova filed a lawsuit against the Bank of Russia, claiming that the Central Bank used the results of her work without permission and without crediting her authorship. The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow did not decide to accept the claim for consideration.