Does anybody know why on the IMDB page it says "48 minutes" for the Soviet version? Were there really an entire 20 minutes cut from the film?
The Russian DVD that I have of this film contains the 29-minute version, so where does the 48 minute figure come from?
It seems very unlikely. Can you imagine how long he would have had to work on that 20 minutes? One doesn't perform such drastic surgery on animation, particularly something created with such care.
Unless maybe it's a later version - did he extend it?
It's 29 minutes, and had always been.
Immediatly after Tale of Tales was completed, he started the Overcoat, his first full-lengh film, which is still in production, having accomplished only 20 minutes so far. He barelly has any money to finish his next film in the post-glasnost era, he sure hell wouldn't have to extend Tales...