Am immensely fond of Russian animation, films too but even more so animation, and have been for nearly a decade. A lot of the best of it came from Soyuzmultfilm, some of the best non-UK/US animations coming from them. One of the most notable and prolific artists and directors to come out of the studio being Ivan Ivanov-Vano, though there were other directors too responsible for some of the studio's best work.'Lefty' (its Russian title being 'Levsha') is a relatively late effort of Ivanov-Vano's and mid-late effort for Soyuzmultfilm. It is based on Nikolai Leskov's, not a familiar writer to me until recently, folk tale-like 'The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea' (or at least that's one of the story's titles) from 1881, and more a screen version of his narration. This story was unknown to me until recently when re-visiting my Soyuzmultfilm completest sake and it stands out among other Russian/Soviet folk-tales, namely down to the story's use of language.It is not one