A former pilot looks back on his life in the air, in the water and in a woman’s warm embrace. What has brought up this whirl of memories and created the ambiguous present? The crows, a paper aeroplane from his childhood, or the blossoming poppies? 

Wings and Oars is Vladimir Leschiov’s fifth short and can be called a sepia-tinted flood of memories. The film was the first to have been made in his studio Lunohod, named after a Soviet robotic lunar rover meaning “moonwalker”. In this short, Leschiov uses his distinctive watercolour style, which was already well-known back then. The film premiered in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, continued on to screen at dozens of other festivals and ultimately won the Lielais Kristaps Award for Best Animated Film thus establishing the versatility of Leschiov’s ingeniously poetic style.