Moomins on the Riviera feature film gets its US premiere on December the 4th 2015 in Santa Monica following the good records in UK, France, Scandinavia, Japan and New Zealand among around 40 countries where the film have been sold since its premiere in Finland in October 2014.
The real classic bases on the original comic strips by Tove Jansson (1914-2001), the beloved Finnish author, whose centennial was celebrated also in 2014. Jansson’s novels for children and adults, picture books with modern style and comics, originally made for Evening News in London, are all world-famous. Moomins stories have been adapted into puppet theatre in Germany and into animated series in many techniques and in many countries from Poland to Japan. Even the Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki made some episodes of the first Japanese Moomins. Actually, many Japanese anime characters owe to Finnish Moomins family and their friends.
The recent feature is produced by Hanna Hemilä f
rom Finland and directed by Xavier Picard from France. Hemilä is currently working on the development of the completely new Moomin tv series, that will be scripted according to not so familiar original comic strips. “They have never been made into any film or series,” said Hemilä just before Cartoon Forum, there the plan was first time presented in September this year.
Tove Jansson’s niece Sophia Jansson was coproducing the feature. His father Lars Jansson followed Tove in making the original comic strips for Evening News until 1975.
