Moominvalley, the new Moomin animated show, heads to Sky next year

MoominValley Concept Art - Midwinter. © Moomin Characters

MoominValley Concept Art – Midwinter. © Moomin Characters

Moominvalley is to air on Sky late next year, bringing the characters from the award-winning author Tove Jansson’s classic books back to life in a new Sky Original Production made by Finnish company Gutsy Animations, who successfully secured over $250,000 in crowdfunding for the project earlier this year.

The show is directed by Oscar-winning director Steve Box, best known for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, produced by Gutsy Animations, a production company based in Tove Jansson’s home city of Helsinki, in Finland. The award-winning creative team has experience ranging from animation to feature films, and commercials to television.

Taron Egerton will voice the much-loved Moomintroll, with Rosamund Pike as the wise and caring protector of the Moomin family, Moominmamma, alongside Matt Berry’s adventurous and knowledgeable Moominpappa. Akiya Henry will voice the part of style-conscious and sometimes flirtatious Snorkmaiden.

Kate Winslet takes the role of spick and span Mrs Fillyjonk, while philosopher and deep thinker, The Muskrat, is played by author Will Self.

Warwick Davis plays Moomintroll’s adopted younger brother, the slightly cowardly little creature Sniff, and Richard Ayoade will enjoy spooking viewers as The Ghost.

MoominValley Concept Art - The Invisible Child © Moomin Characters

MoominValley Concept Art – The Invisible Child © Moomin Characters

The animation is of course fully supported by Moomin Characters – a business run by the family of Tove Jansson to manage the Moomin brand.

Now Gutsy and Sky are bringing the Moomin back as an innovative new television animation, which will help bring Moomin to a new generation. The series, which Gutsy hope to make the most faithful version of Tove Jansson’s stories yet committed to screen so far, will be made using state-of-the-art CGI technology combined with more traditional hand-drawn techniques.

Each episode is based on an original storyline or incident from the novels and comic strips with Gutsy originally indicating they would start with 13 episodes.

MoominValley Concept Art - Midsummer © Moomin Characters

MoominValley Concept Art – Midsummer © Moomin Characters

“Moominvalley is very much a Finnish-British collaboration,” says Marika Makaroff, creative director and executive producer at Gutsy Animations, “with a top-quality UK team that includes the Oscar-winning director Steve Box and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler.

“We’re delighted to announce the we’re working with Sky to broadcast the series to Moomin fans in the UK, of which we know there are very many. It’s an honour to be making this new adaptation of Tove’s beautiful and deeply meaningful stories a reality.”

Tove Jansson published her first Moomin book in 1945, the beginning of the legendary Moomin characters. Her books have sold in their millions, and been translated into 44 languages and later evolved into a hugely successful newspaper strip, toys, tv series, films and even theme parks that have been adored by millions of fans all over the world.

Examples of the Moomins newspaper strip created by Tove Jansson and published in the London Evening News in the 1950s.

An examples of the Moomin newspaper strip created by Tove Jansson and published in the London Evening News in the 1950s. © and TM Moomin Characters

• Gutsy Animation is online at www.gutsy.fi | Read an interview with Moominvalley‘s creators here on Digital Arts

• Web: www.moomin.com/en | You can follow Moomin on FacebookTwitter and Instagram and make sure to sign up for Moomin.com’s newsletter to get the latest information on the upcoming Moomin series

Read our story about the Tove Jansson exhibition at the Dulwich Art Gallery

There’s a great profile of Tove Jansson here on the BBC web site



Categories: Animation, Crowd Funding Projects, downthetubes News, Other Worlds

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