Solan the Hedgehog and Ludvig the Magpie return to the cinema
Chipping in €1.6 million production funding, the Norwegian Film Institute has launched Solan and Ludvig: Christmas in Pinchcliffe, a stop-motion animated feature and the return of Solan the Hedgehog and Ludvig the Magpie from Norway’s so far most popular film.
Between 1970-1975 Norwegian director Ivo Caprino and his five-man team worked on Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, from the universe of Norwegian author and cartoonist Kjell Aukrust Alvdal. The film became an overnight success and was shown every day in a cinema somewhere for 28 years; in Norway it sold 5.5 million tickets (to a population of 4.9 million).
”However, except for some of the characters the new film has nothing to do with Caprino’s; our point of origin is Aukrust’s original story and his illustrations from the 1950s,” explained Cornelia Boysen, of Norwegian production outfit Maipo, staging the €3.2 million movie.
Returning to the screen around Christmas-time, Solan (an optimistic and cheerful magpie) and Ludvig (a pessimistic and melancholic hedgehog) are really looking forward to snow, so their friend, the inventor Reodor Felgen, comes up with the world’s largest snow canon. However, it falls into the wrong hands according to Karsten Fullu’s script, which is based on Harald Sommerin Simonnæs’ book.
Rasmus A Sivertsen (Kurt Turns Evil [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), will direct Solan and Ludvig: Christmas in Pinchcliffe. Production is scheduled to start this summer for a Nov 1, 2013, premiere. Norwegian studio Qvisten Animation (Kurt Turns Evil) will be responsible for the classic puppet animation, and Nordisk Film Distribusjon will handle local distribution.
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