‘Crime and Punishment’ videobook based upon Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel will be released soon

Sarov animation studio of the KinoAtis company completed the production of the video book ‘Crime and Punishment’ based on a 320-page graphic novel adaptation of the work by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The film is directed and produced by Vadim Sotskov. The authors of the graphic novel are Alexander Poltorak and Dmitry Chukhray. The main role of the narrator of the story was voiced by the famous poet and YouTube blogger Dmitry Kravchenko.

In the process of working on the project, as director and producer Vadim Sotskov notes, some episodes and dialogues from Dostoevsky’s original work that were not included in the graphic novel were returned, and some scenes that could have been dispensed with, on the contrary, were deleted. Everything is in order to make Dostoevsky’s great work as understandable as possible for the viewer. That is why the creators could not keep up with the timing, which they planned – 1.5 hours.

‘It’s always interesting to do something new, and for me this project has become a kind of challenge. Initially, it seemed that it would be simple, since the project is based on a graphic novel, and the visual component is already there, but it turned out to be much more complicated. In fact, the work was carried out as on a large full-length film. It was necessary to understand and imagine the characters, write a script, edit. One of the main tasks is for actors to perfectly convey the characters of Dostoevsky’s book with their voices so that the story really plays out. It’s hard to throw anything out of a book so that the meaning doesn’t get lost. Therefore, we left a lot of the original text, but worked on shortening within the text and dialogues themselves. A lot of digressions were removed, but at the same time without loss of meaning and content, – Vadim Sotskov tells about the work on the project. – When I first read Dostoevsky’s novel in my youth, it seemed to me a gloomy work, but now I clearly see the bright and life-affirming essence of this book, which is reflected in the finale, a kind of Resurrection of Lazarus. The punishment and resurrection of man.’

The video book is a new format for Russia and a very promising genre. The creators note that it will help to find an approach to modern youth, who have a different way of perceiving information.

The video book ‘Crime and Punishment’ will be released simultaneously with the graphic novel.