The release of the animated science fiction project “Cyberslav” is scheduled for 2024. One of the authors and directors of the film, Stanislav Dmitriev, said that the series will be a prequel to the full-length film. He also shared some details about the plot and the fantasy world based on Russian folklore. The story revolves around the hero Cyberslav, who hunts the evil spirits inhabiting the outskirts of the city of Kitezh. Details are in the RT material.
“Cyberslav” is the first Russian animation project of its kind about the Slavic alternative world, where folklore epic and cyberpunk are combined. In a conversation with RT, the author and one of the directors of the project, Stanislav Dmitriev, said that the eight-episode series will become part of a franchise, within which it is planned to release a full-length film. The script for it was written back in 2019 and developed by the Evil Pirate studio, but production did not start, and after KinoPoisk became interested in the project in 2020, it was decided to start with the series.
“We (together with KinoPoisk. – RT) decided to expand the universe and start with full-length prequels, which were just written. The events of the series are not far behind the full length,” said the director, adding that part of the hero’s origin story will be revealed in the first season.
In the story, the hero Cyberslav, a resident of Kitezh, where various high-tech mechanisms and devices are powered by the energy of a mysterious Source, hunts evil spirits. In this way, he also suppresses self-hatred: the hero is a cross between a human and an evil spirit, a half-breed with purple eyes and a paw instead of one hand. Cyberslav serves the guardian of the Source – the prince. The hero’s exploits remain in the shadows, since he is an outcast among people. The hero knows nothing about his origins: immediately after birth he was sent to an orphanage at a monastery, where he grew up.
Cyberslav manifests a dark essence, and to contain it, he wears a special collar. The only person who accepts the hero for who he is is his childhood friend, the young princess Miloslava, with whom he is secretly in love. He has another supporter – the demon Art.
In the series, Cyberslav will investigate a terrible crime related to the princely family. The hero will have to find out whether the local people or the devilry living in the nearby forests are to blame for the crime. Cyberslav fights against evil spirits with the help of high-tech gadgets – these are ultra-modern weapons in the form of a cross that shoots a laser, and grenades that turn into a nesting doll. They could be seen in the first demo video of the project, in which the authors reflected “their vision of domestic animated cinema.”
It is interesting that in this world there are no gadgets familiar to modern viewers: smartphones and other means of communication. As Dmitriev notes, from a mechanical point of view, the idea of the project is rather close to the Star Wars franchise.
“We do not confuse the future with the past, where the ancient Rus suddenly learned the technologies of modernity. This is a parallel reality that has followed a certain path, an invented lore (background information about a fictional world. – RT ), like Tolkien or Martin. A developed world in which everything is harmonious and it itself lives in parallel with ours,” the filmmaker emphasized.
At the same time, Dmitriev noted that the picture is not surreal, and the advent of smartphones would make the world of Cyberslav unrealistic.
© Still from the series “Cyberslav”
The filmmaker explained that the protracted production process is due to the complexity of implementing a project of this scale. It is possible that, having replenished the KinoPoisk line, the series will receive a continuation, since the online cinema (as in the case of films about Major Thunder) is actively working on stories that have the potential to develop into a cinematic universe. At the same time, Dmitriev noted that, despite the support of KinoPoisk, Cyberslav remains an author’s project.
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In September 2018, a trailer for the cartoon “Cyberslav” appeared on the Internet – the upcoming ambitious project of the young St. Petersburg…
“This is not a production project, but an Internet project. It started as a video on the Internet. And everyone understands that this is such a visionary story – something that can come from the pens of certain authors who invented it and worked on it for many years before it became commercial,” he emphasized.
The authors of the film, in turn, try to adhere to the proposed format and take into account issues related to the site’s requirements for content.
Russian aesthetics in the project, in addition to the clothes of the heroes – from earflaps to heroic armor, are conveyed in musical accompaniment. The latest teaser combines ringing bells with an epic drum line.
