Anna Starobinets

Who is the new Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Gogol waiting to be discovered by the English-speaking world? Hosted by actor, author, and activist Stephen Fry, focuses on six authors whose vibrant, idiosyncratic work continues to gain traction with a global audience: Dmitry Bykov, Mariam Petrosyan, Zakhar Prilepin, Anna Starobinets, Vladimir Sorokin, and Lyudmila Ultiskaya. With contributions from their literary critics, publishers, and peers, the film features extensive interviews with each author.

This is the story of the disobedient little girl Sasha, whose parents, for the New Year, thoughtlessly wish for a well behaved girl instead of Sasha. Even before the New Year chimes in, a different good little girl is on their doorstep, while Sasha is fantastically transported to the magical Land of Good Little Kids for re-education. In this land there rules a stern queen and her even tougher controlling emissary. To get back home to her parents, Sasha will have incredible adventures and must face many tests, while helped by her loyal friends, Baget the cat and Balbess the dog.

A beautiful and kind girl, daughter of Baba Yaga, finds a magical stone Alatyr while walking in a field. It transforms her heart into a stone and puts her under a queer curse. She is to be the evil Countess of Stones and live in a stone tower. If the greatest gem-cutter in the world brings the stone of Alatyr to life, though, she'll become the ruler of the world. The Stone Countess, now cruel and selfish, is fascinated with the idea. She starts searching for the best gem-cutters and forces them to work with Alatyr, so the magical stone would become a living thing. Neither of the gem-cutters succeeds, so she kills them. While being imprisoned in her tower, they work on a large book about the secrets of gem-cutting. Each of them edits the book, so it's later named "the Book of Masters".