The Adventures of Buratino (1976 film)

The Adventures of Buratino (Russian: Приключения Буратино, romanized: Priklyucheniya Buratino) is a Soviet-Belarusian children's musical film, made in 1975 at Belarusfilm.

The Adventures of Buratino
The Adventures of Buratino
Приключения Буратино
Directed by	Leonid Nechayev
Produced by	Belarusfilm Cinephone
Written by	Inna Vetkina
Story by	Alexei Tolstoy
Based on	The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino
Starring	Dmitri Iosifov Nikolai Grinko Yuri Katin-Yartsev Tatyana Protsenko Roman Stolkarts Thomas Augustinas Grigori Svetlorusov Rina Zelyonaya Vladimir Etush Rolan Bykov Elena Sanayeva Vladimir Basov Baadur Tsuladze Valentin Bukin
Music by	Alexey Rybnikov
Cinematography	Yuri Elkhov
Edited by	Vera Kolyadenko
Release date	1976
Running time	132 minutes
Country	Russia
Language	Russian

Directed by Leonid Nechayev, the film was an adaptation of The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino by Alexey Tolstoy in turn an adaptation of the 1883 Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. Inna Vetkina wrote the screenplay for The Adventures of Buratino, as well as several other films directed by Nechayev.

The plot of the film follows Buratino (Italian for "puppet"), a boy made of wood, who meets the children of Karabas Barabas' theatre and sets out to free them. In order to do so, he needs to unravel the mystery of a golden key given by the turtle Tortila. Characters such as Harlequin and Pierrot, who act in the children's theatre are part of commedia dell'arte.

Music for the film was composed by Alexey Rybnikov and the lyricists included Bulat Okudzhava, and Yuri Entin. There was an early interest by the director Nechayev to work with Yuli Kim (then writing under the last name Mikhailov) as a songwriter. At that time, Yuli Kim was banned from television, so they turned to Okudzhava. Okudzhava wrote music as well as lyrics, though only the music of Rybnikov was used in the film. The songs that Okudzhava wrote were serious and philosophical, so Nechayev also incorporated lyrics by Yuri Entin and omitted some of Okudzhava's.^[A][1]

Almost all of the children who acted in the film were from Minsk.[1] Dima Iosifov played Buratino. The adults in the cast were famous actors from the rest of the Soviet Union. Nikolai Grinko played Papa Carlo. Vladimir Etush played Karabas Barabas. Rina Zelyonaya played the turtle Tortila. Rolan Bykov played the cat Bazilio.[2]

A number of musical children's films followed, by the makers of The Adventures of Buratino, including About the Little Red Riding Hood (Ольга Береснева) in 1977.[3]