The Danish Poet

With Oscars coming up most of the public attention will go to mega-blockbuster films featuring mega-movie stars, which to me is sort of sad because what the Academy Awards should do is highlight smaller films that are creative and deserve our attention. A good example of this is the overlooked cateogory for animated shorts which is filled with goodies that should be exposed to the film going masses (or even us animation fanboys and fangirls).

“The Danish Poet” is a quirky animated short film worth checking out which is up for an nomination this year. The style of the animation reminds me of children’s book yet the sense of humor is very sophisticated and philosophical. What’s also nice about the film is that in an age of computer graphics, the film instead uses the good old fashion method of 2D cell animation (although they did cheat and do all their coloring on the computer, but you get the idea). Director Torill Kove is up for her 2nd nomination, and what’s also interesting is that the film is a Canada-Norway co-production.

The website for the film is at onf.ca/webextension/thedanishpoet/.

And for those of you who’d like even more detail, here’s a plot description of “The Danish Poet ” from their press kit:

“Can we trace the chain of events that leads to our own birth? Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter? The narrator of The Danish Poet considers these questions as we follow Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous writer, Sigrid Undset. As Kasper’s quest for inspiration unfolds, it appears that a spell of bad weather, an angry dog, slippery barn planks, a careless postman, hungry goats and other seemingly unrelated factors might play important roles in the big scheme of things after all.”

And here’s an official bio for the director Torill Kove:

“Torill Kove was born and raised in Norway and moved to Canada, where she continued her education and worked in urban planning for several years. Her childhood hobby of drawing and sketching grew into an interest in animation and she returned to school to study animation at Concordia University in Montreal, winning the Kodak Award for her quirky films All You Can Eat, Fallen Angel, and Squash and Stretch.

Torill has worked in a variety of roles on several National Film Board of Canada productions and wrote the script for the animated short Snails, by the Norwegian filmmaker Pjotr Sapegin. She also illustrated three children’s books. Torill’s first professional film, My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts, co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada and Studio Magica of Oslo, won numerous international awards and was nominated for an Oscar®. The Danish Poet, Torill’s latest film, is an animated short about life’s peculiar coincidences.”

By the way it should be mentioned that Torill is not just the director of the film, but also the writer and an animator (the do-it-yourself fanboy in me loves that sort detail).