Moomins on the Riviera

Moomins on the Riviera is a 2014 FinnishFrench animated family comedy film directed by Xavier Picard and produced by Hanna Hemil, who is also codirector. The film is based on Moomin comic strips by Tove Jansson and Lars Jansson. The film is a coproduction of Finnish Handle Productions and French Pictak Cie. The film is written by Leslie Stewart, Annina Enckell, Hanna Hemil, Xavier Picard and Beata Harju. The British English version of the film stars Russell Tovey as Moomin, Nathaniel Parker as Moominpappa and Tracy Ann Oberman as Moominmamma. The film is based on the Moomin Tove Janssons original comic strip Moomin on the Riviera and it is the first animated feature based on the comic strips. In the film, the Moomins along with Snorkmaiden and Little My sail for the Riviera, where their unity is threatened. Snorkmaiden is dazzled by the attentions of the playboy Clark Tresco and Moominpappa befriends an aristocrat Marquis Mongaga, while Moomin and Moominmamma decide to move to the beach in order to escape all the glamorous extravagance. Moomins on the Riviera has been first released theatrically onOctober 2014 in Finland to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Tove Janssons birth. In United Kingdom, the film made its premiere onOctober 2014 at BFI London Film Festival and it had a wider theatrical release inMay 2015.

Additional roles from the English version of the film are played by Dominic Frisby, who also codirected the English dialogue, Ian Conningham, Alison ODonnell, Bernard Alane, Bruno Magnes, Andy Turvey, Kris Gummerus, Glyn Welden Banks, Lee Willis, SannaJune Hyde, Christopher Sloan and Leslie Hyde. Maria Sid and Beata Harju, who provide voices for Moominmamma and the Mymble in the Finnish and Swedish versions, also voice minor roles in the English dub.According to Sophia Jansson of the Moomin Characters, the company had been careful with giving the rights to new film adaptions about the Moomins for years. When the participation rights with the Telescreen had ceased, Sophia Jansson has shown interest towards the idea for animated film based on the Moomin comic strip story. The producer Hanna Hemil who is Sophias close friend, tells Sophia about French animation director Xavier Picard, who could be interested to turn comic strips to the big screen. They contact Picard and the film started production in France in 2010. The film is animated the traditional, hand drawn animation with a reduced color scale for the backgrounds in order to maintain continuity with the blackandwhite comic strips. Pictak Cie has been on developing the visuals of the film, Chinese Sandman Animation Studio has done 120,000 drawings for the handmade animation and Handle Productions is producing the film. The film marks the feature film directorial debut of Xavier Picard. Picard wasnt aware of the Moomins before he discovered themyears ago in Japan, but he has been particularly fascinated by comic strips and has stated to want translate the art of Tove Jansson into animation. The Finnish voice cast of the film has been confirmed on August 2014 featuring Maria Sid as Moominmamma, while the English voice cast has been confirmed on September 2014 press announcement. The films score is confirmed to being made by many Finnish and French compo

Source: Wikipedia