The Magic Weaver (, "Maria the Weaver") is a 1960 Soviet children's live-action fantasy film directed by Aleksandr Rou and filmed at Gorky Film Studio. It was additionally released in Hungary in 1964. The film was imported to the West in the 1960s and ran in the U.S. in 1966 with English dubbed, on distribution from Allied Artists Pictures. The film tells the story of how an old soldier helps a boy find his mother, Maria the Weaver, who has been kidnapped and carried away by an evil king of the undersea kingdom.

Plot

A soldier returns to his homeland and plays a song on his drum. Two young bears appear who ask him to free their mother trapped in an iron. In fact, Mother Bear's paw is in a strange iron beak which amazes the soldier. The bears tell him that they have not gone to the nearby forest for a long time, because sinister creatures are out there. The soldier wants to know more about this and enters the deathly quiet forest. He finds here the sleeping boy Vanya, who is looking for his mother Maria. She was abducted by the evil spirit of water because she can weave works of art. When the soldier announces his intention to take up the fight against the Water Spirit, he appears before him and the boy. Both of them ask him to return Maria back. The Water Spirit agrees in exchange for the soldier's drum, despite abhorring all noise. The soldier agrees to give him the drum after the Water Spirit leads them to Maria. He takes them into his kingdom.