14/08/2013 - Two fully-animated features by Oscar-winning Torill Kove and Rasmus A Sivertsen will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Norwegian animation

“This Autumn, the Norwegian film industry will be dominated by films for children of all ages, which is good news after last year which was pretty thin on kidpics,” said managing director Nina Refseth, of the Norwegian Film Institute, when yesterday (August 13) she introduced the 13 local premieres for the upcoming cinema season.

Refseth focused on two fully-animated features, which happen to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of Norwegian animation: Hocus, Pocus, Alfie Atkins! (photo) by Torill Kove (who was awarded an Oscar for her 2006 short, The Danish Poet), and Solan & Ludvig's Christmas by Rasmus A Sivertsen, which revives the characters from the 1975 classic, Pinchcliffe Grand Prix.

Hocus, Pocus, Alfie Atkins! is about seven-year-old Alfie, who dreams of having a playful terrier like the old magician’s – and since magic is all about the mind, he is convinced he can make his dream come true. Solan & Ludvig's Christmas finds Christmas jeopardised by the lack of snow – and the world’s best snowmaker has fallen into the wrong hands.

The €31.7 million production package includes both high and low-budget productions, such as Erik Skjolbjærg’s oil rush thriller, Pioneer [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (€6.5 million) and Gunhild Westhagen Magnor’s documentary, The Optimists [+see also:
trailer
interview: Ingunn Knudsen
film profile] (€0.2 million). Themes range from love (Iram Haq’s I Am Yours), excitement (Pioneer, Mikkel B Sandemose’s Ragnarok [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), drama (Erik Poppe’s A Thousand Times Goodnight) and humour (Bård Breien’s Detective Downs, Vegar Hoel’s Kill Buljo 2).

While the children’s films of the autumn will attract audiences of most ages, the two feature-length documentaries both have elderly casts - Frode Fimland’s Søsken til evig tid (English title tba) portrays siblings over 70, while The Optimists follows lady volleyball players aged 66-98.