Sim­ply Nordic

Ani­mat­ed fea­tures from Den­mark, Fin­land, Ice­land, Nor­way and Swe­den are rich and diverse: Films for adults and chil­dren, doc­u­men­tary and fic­tion, 2D, 3D, stop-motion, glass table, and hybrids. But we all come from the same sto­ry­telling tra­di­tion. We are all sim­ply Nordic.

From Hans Chris­t­ian Andersen’s ​“The Lit­tle Mer­maid” to Astrid Lindgren’s ​“Pip­pi Long­stock­ing” to Tove Jansson’s ​“Moomins” and Thor­b­jorn Egner’s ​“The For­est of Huck­y­Bucky” – the Nordic coun­tries have a dis­tinct cul­ture for sto­ries that tran­scend gen­er­a­tions and speak vol­umes of what it means to be human. Sto­ries with char­ac­ters that chal­lenge our expec­ta­tions, make us see the world and our­selves in a new light, show­ing that peo­ple are equal, no mat­ter how different. 

In these sto­ries, the char­ac­ters are rebel­lious, inde­pen­dent, and accom­plished, they lead the way to a bet­ter tomor­row. Not through real­iz­ing who they tru­ly are on an indi­vid­ual lev­el, but through chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo like Pip­pi and the Lit­tle Mer­maid or through embrac­ing and respect­ing diver­si­ty, as with the ​“Moomins” and in ​“The For­est of Huck­y­Bucky”. Only through gen­uine respect and inclu­sion for all, can we move forward.

And this mes­sage has res­onat­ed world­wide. Astrid Lindgren’s books have been trans­lat­ed into more than 100 lan­guages and have sold in 165 mil­lion copies. ​“The Lit­tle Mer­maid” is not only one of Disney’s biggest box office hits, but also has a Sovi­et live-action film adap­ta­tion, an ani­mat­ed series, and has inspired theme parks and video games alike. The ​“Moomins” have their own theme park in both Fin­land and Japan and the books have been adapt­ed all over the world includ­ing Ger­many, Rus­sia, a wild­ly pop­u­lar Japan­ese series, Pol­ish stop-motion fea­tures and most recent­ly the Finnish-British 3D series ​“Moom­in­val­ley”.

INNO­VA­TION

The Nordics con­tin­ue to breathe new life into our lit­er­ary clas­sics keep­ing them rel­e­vant for a con­tem­po­rary audi­ence. But as a tru­ly inno­v­a­tive region, we are devel­op­ing new fran­chis­es, such as ​“Angry Birds”, ​“Nin­ja­go”, ​“Cap­tain Saber­tooth” and the upcom­ing ​“The Unstop­pable Yel­low Yeti”. Fran­chis­es that, thanks to their vivid imag­i­na­tion, have mes­mer­ized kids world­wide. On the sur­face, they are pure fun, but they also car­ry an impor­tant mes­sage – the need to work togeth­er and turn our dif­fer­ences into strengths.

Nordic ani­ma­tion also push­es the bound­aries for what ani­mat­ed fam­i­ly films could be: with bad lan­guage and a crit­i­cism of the west­ern exploita­tion of sweat­shop work­ers in the mas­sive­ly enter­tain­ing ​“Check­ered Nin­ja” films. Turn­ing a true polar adven­ture into a play­ful and irrev­er­ent film in the upcom­ing ​“Titi­na”.

Dar­ing to serve kids crazy acid trips in the ​“Two Bud­dies and a Bad­ger” movies. Telling a bru­tal but empath­ic sto­ry of four gen­er­a­tions of Pales­tin­ian refugees in ​“The Tow­er”. Cen­ter­ing on mod­ern and uncon­ven­tion­al fam­i­lies as in ​“Hocus Pocus Alfie Atkins”, the ​“Niko” films and ​“Bear Park”. We con­stant­ly ques­tion the sta­tus quo and con­tin­ue to offer our unique per­spec­tive to the world.

UNCON­VEN­TION­AL CHARACTERS

Orig­i­nat­ing in the region of Astrid Lind­gren, no won­der Nordic ani­ma­tion is filled with inde­pen­dent, active, coura­geous, and anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­an female char­ac­ters, rang­ing from ​“Ella Bel­la Bin­go” to ​“Mam­ma Moo”. But Nordic heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Both ​“Top 3” and the acclaimed doc­u­men­tary ​“Flee” cen­ter on gay main char­ac­ters and tell their sto­ries with open­ness and insight­ful com­pas­sion. The film ​“The Ape Star” ques­tions the soci­etal norms of good par­ent­ing and shows how the clum­sy Goril­la who is treat­ed as an out­sider has all the wis­dom and warmth a human orphan girl needs in a moth­er. In ​“Ploey – You Will Nev­er Fly Alone”, the lost chick Ploey gets much need­ed help from a one-eyed dispir­it­ed her­mit, while side­kicks of ​“Richard the Stork” are a flam­boy­ant gen­der bend­ing canary bird and an owl with dis­so­cia­tive iden­ti­ty disorder.

Diverse as they are, the most uni­fy­ing trait of Nordic ani­mat­ed char­ac­ters is their lack of larg­er-than-life excep­tion­al­ism. They are rarely superhero’s or the ​‘spe­cial cho­sen one’ we so often encounter in ani­mat­ed uni­vers­es. They are ordi­nary adults, chil­dren, or ani­mals for that sake, who are put to the test despite their lack of extra­or­di­nary tal­ents. The Nordic pro­tag­o­nists will have to make do with what they have and rely on the help of oth­ers to suc­ceed. In the upcom­ing fea­ture ​“Just Super”, the young girl Hed­vig is inca­pable of con­tin­u­ing the fam­i­ly lega­cy as a super­hero, she is just an every­day kid. The Nordic atti­tude is exem­pli­fied in the tagline: ​‘You don’t need to be a super­hero to be super!’ And when we make a film about a princess, we move her to an ordi­nary house in an ordi­nary sub­urb to under­line that ​“The Roy­als Next Door” are no more excep­tion­al than you and I.

Uncon­ven­tion­al char­ac­ters give uncon­ven­tion­al sto­ries. Uncon­ven­tion­al sto­ries deliv­er new insight. New insight inspires change. Change, the Nordic way – cham­pi­oning open­ness, inclu­sion, inno­va­tion, diver­si­ty, and equal­i­ty. For everyone.

IT’S NAT­UR­AL

In the Nordic coun­tries, we live close to nature and the chang­ing sea­sons: the dark arc­tic win­ter with its north­ern light, the end­less sum­mer nights with its mid­night sun – the thou­sand lakes of Fin­land, the dra­mat­ic Nor­we­gian fjords, the deep forests of Swe­den, the vol­canic beau­ty of Ice­land. Nature, to the Nordics, is not a threat, but a sanc­tu­ary – a place we go to find peace, to chal­lenge our­selves, to dis­cov­er beau­ty, and to find inspi­ra­tion. That’s why nature is so present in our ani­mat­ed fea­tures, as well as in our folk­lore and sto­ry­telling. This res­onates beyond the Nordics, as seen in ​“Frozen”’s respect­ful homage to the indige­nous Sami cul­ture and the more humor­ous approach tak­en in ​“Klaus”. Our pro­found respect for nature is also fun­da­men­tal to our pro­duc­tion pipelines. Green and sus­tain­able film pro­duc­tion is not a future goal. It is a way of work­ing here and now.

EFFI­CIENT QUALITY

The Nordic coun­tries are marked by trans­paren­cy, inno­va­tion, and egal­i­tar­i­an­ism. Col­lab­o­rat­ing with us, you will expe­ri­ence a work cul­ture where everyone’s opin­ion is respect­ed. Where small, com­pe­tent, effi­cient teams take an active part in the artis­tic process. Where ​‘good enough’ is nev­er enough and every sin­gle artist goes the extra mile. Where there are no secrets or hid­den bud­get lines. Where the pro­duc­tion is well struc­tured, and the mon­ey is put on the screen. Nordic com­pa­nies work with giants such as Dis­ney and Mar­vel, but we also love to take part in ambi­tious and artis­tic Euro­pean inde­pen­dent projects such as ​“Song of the Sea” and ​“Long Way North”.

Whether you join our Nordic sto­ries, or we part­ner on yours, we offer the same unbu­reau­crat­ic and pro­duc­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion. We see no rea­son to make things more com­pli­cat­ed than they need to be. We offer Nordic sim­plic­i­ty. It is sim­ply Nordic.