[3] Yuri Norstein was born to a Jewish family in the village of Andreyevka, Penza Oblast, during his parents' World War II evacuation.

The next film in which he had a major role was The Battle of Kerzhenets (1971), a co-production with Russian animation director Ivan Ivanov-Vano under whose direction Norstein had earlier worked on 1969's Times of the Year.

Throughout the 1970s Norstein continued to work as an animator in many films (a more complete list can be found at IMDb), and also directed several.

Then, in a bitter twist of irony, he was fired from Soyuzmultfilm in 1985 for working too slowly on his latest film, a (presumably) feature-length adaptation of Gogol's The Overcoat.

To this day, Norstein is still working on The Overcoat – his ardent perfectionism has earned him the nickname "The Golden Snail".

The project has met numerous financial troubles and false starts, but Norstein has said that it currently has reliable funding from several sources, both from within and outside of Russia.

That same year, he was invited as "guest animator" to work on Kihachirō Kawamoto's puppet-animated feature film, The Book of the Dead.

The book, which was printed in the Czech Republic and funded by Sberbank, consists of two volumes, 620 pages, and 1700 color illustrations.

[17] 2K resolution transfers of the six theatrical shorts directed by Norstein by were made by the Japanese film laboratory Imagica.

[20] Hayao Miyazaki considers Norstein "a great artist"[22] and cited Hedgehog in the Fog as one of his favourite animated films.