Umka

Umka (Russian: Умка) is a 1969 Soviet animated film. It is based on a children's book of the same name by Yuri Yakovlev, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. Umka means "polar bear" in the Chukchi language. The film is famous for its song "She-bear's Lullaby" (Russian: Колыбельная медведицы), written by Yevgeny Krylatov and performed by Aida Vedishcheva. Plot One night, a female polar bear teaches her cub Umka how to build a den in the snow. When she puts him to sleep, he asks her to tell a tale about the fish. The tale is about a sad Fish-Sun who cannot escape from a shark's teeth. After the tale, Umka asks if their Sun was eaten by a shark too, which his mother denies, since the Sun is not a fish and swims above them. She puts him to sleep, telling him that when he wakes up, the Sun will appear. She then sings him a lullaby to help him fall asleep. The next morning, Umka notices a small camp of human reindeer herders. When he asks about them, his mother explains that they are "bears who constantly walk on hind legs and can take off their skin". When Umka tries to walk on his hind legs, she tells him that they smell of smoke, sending him instead to catch a fish from an ice hole. When he tries to, he can't find any fish. His mother explains that this is because of his nose: while he is white, his nose is black, and that is blowing his cover. She advises him to cover it with his paw. Umka then wonders if the two-legged bears cover their noses too.