6 years and above

DRENGEN DER VILLE GØRE DET UMULIGE

(The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear, Danimarca/2002) by Jannik Hastrup (75’)

Writer, director, animator and musician, Jannik Hastrup is today considered the grandmaster of Danish animation and director of films and series that are landmarks in Scandinavian children’s culture. Hastrup trained at the Bent
Barfod Film studio, which contributed to the anti-Disney identity of a strain of Northern European animated cinema in the aftermath of WWII. In the early 1960s, Hastrup and his friend and colleague Flemming Quist Møller founded the production company Fiasco Film where the two fine-tuned their technique, experimenting and taking on challenging subjects. A free and independent spirit, Hastrup has stood up for social and environmental issues by making his characters defenders of nature and human rights, addressing audiences of adults and children with great candour. Our retrospective features two feature films and a selection of shorts, chosen and presented by the filmmaker. Samson & Sally and The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear, which received a special mention at the Berlinale in 2003, analyse the relationship between man and nature from an environmental perspective. The theme of inequality is central to the short film War and Peas, while in the series Birdland Hastrup pays tribute to jazz music, one of his great passions and a recurring theme in his productions along with his beloved watercolours.