Animated feature film (2024)
When a young girl moves to her grandmother, she discovers that there lives a boy in the basement who is the size of a little finger. He owns a magical amulet that takes the two on a journey that will change their lives.
Credits:
— Director: Anja Høvik Strømsted
— Producer: Jasmin Hurst
— Production Company: Flipsnip Films and Hurst Production
— Writer, DP, Voices, Editor, Animator, Music: Anja Høvik Strømsted
— Sound Designer, Supervising Sound Editor, Re-recording Sound Mixer : Aleksandr Valentsov
— AMB and FX editor: Anna Slivka
— Post Production Supervisor: Anya Alekhina
— Foley Artist, Foley Editor: Artyom Busel
— Foley Recordist: Alexei Busel
— Model Maker: Jasmin Hurst and Anja Høvik Strømsted
In every aspect of making Blossomele, from creating the puppets to the finalization of sound, there was an unusual attention to the material of the animation. The material tissue paper was mainly chosen for the child because of its inspiring originality and our belief that all expressions are possible, even animated paper. That was always the central vision. The charm, immediacy, fragility, and closeness, both in the puppets’ expression, cinematography, and sound design, was something this little crew cherished and felt the need to convey to the world. For me, as a director filling so many of the roles myself, almost everyone, it was always important to let the world know that anything is possible if you don’t give up. Cinema is considered something many can only dream of making without a budget and a crew. Doing so much myself, including all the voices, was a positive aspect of the making that I wanted to show to the world of other aspiring filmmakers and children. Creating it this way, nothing contradicted my vision or the feel of the universe, which the sound designer realized even more. The film can be viewed as a children’s and arthouse animation, which I decided mainly through a strong belief in children’s ability to think for themselves. I worked a lot on character development, creating two complex children going through a significant change from the first minutes to the end, which was always the story’s most crucial aspect. It’s a story of two young people who have experienced grief and who, through this journey, learn to be humble, open up to each other, and love. And this way, they get what they all missed the most.