A screenwriter tries to write a script with a typewriter, but tears it up several times. In a fit of desperation, he prepares to commit suicide, but a winged Muse descends to him. He frantically completes the script before passing out. His friend, a film director, walks in and, after reading the script, wakes him up, enthusiastically praises him and offers to pitch the script to multiple production companies. The two pitch the script to the companies in a labyrinthine office building, where the script gets stamped with various criticisms. The two shorten the text, then add the text back, before the director finally manages to approve the script behind the door with the grandest design. The film director goes to the film studio and begins to gather the film crew: the art director, the director of photography, the composer, the sound engineer, the assistant director, the actors, workers, and others, while the screenwriter stays behind in the central city. Filming begins on the film, a war epic. The director and crew encounter numerous difficulties: the necessary props are absent, the weather is bad, the child actor is disobedient, and the production repeatedly runs over budget. To top it off, near the end of shooting, the authorities reject the end of the film, the protagonist’s violent death, as too gloomy. The ending is urgently rewritten and reshot. At the premiere, after a tense wait where the director walks up the walls and screenwriter contemplates suicide again, the entire film crew, hearing applause from the audience, weeps with happiness. The movie begins and ends with a song: "So many jobs that call, // but film is best of all. // Once you're involved with it // Happiness guaranteed".
1976 — Fyodor Khitruk received the USSR State Prize for Film, Film, Film, the Winnie-the-Pooh trilogy, Island and I Grant You A Star
Other facts
According to Khitruk, the cartoon character of the film director was inspired by Grigori Roshal and not by Sergei Eisenstein as most people think.
The main theme was performed by :ru:Сокол |Sokol, the first Soviet rock band, although they were listed as "VIA Sokol" in the credits. Vocals were provided by Vyacheslav Dobrynin, Valentin Vitebskiy and Leonid Berger of the VIA Orphey who were not mentioned in the credits at all.
