In October 2014 issue 3
of the Finnish, but Swedish language[i], publication Film Journalen allocated a substantial
amount of space to animation and to women creators. Considering its
international distribution and profile, it is hardly surprising that the cover should
have featured two of the main characters from the 2014 Finnish-French
co-production Moomins in the Riviera,
the Snork Maiden and Moomintroll himself. The Moomins have grown to become one
of Finland’s most successful cultural exports and their creator, Tove Jansson (1914-2001),
assumed the status of a beloved national institution already in her life-time.
However, while the article about the Moomin film is given a double page spread,
a far more substantial portion of the journal is given to retrospective appraisals
of domestic animation occasioned by 2014 as the centenary year
of the animated film. Particular attention is given to a group of female freelance
creators who during the 1970s brought about something of a golden age of home-grown
animation within the Swedish-language children’s programming at the public
broadcaster Yleisradio (translates roughly as ‘Public Radio’), or YLE. There is
an essay running through fifty years of Swedish language children’s animation
(Uggledahl 2014: 14-18), an article by Antonia Ringbom (2014: 20-25) based on
transcripts from her documentary and a shorter piece by Johanna Minkkinen
(2014: 36-37) about the 2014 release of a compilation DVD of animated shorts by
Camilla Mickwitz as a cultural heritage undertaking by the Finland Swedish Film
Centre. Before proceeding I should declare that Camilla Mickwitz (1937-1989),
one of the key figures in Finnish children’s animation of this era, was my
mother. This means that my understanding
of the topic, although grounded in research, also draws on memory and my position
as an ‘inside observer’ (albeit a very young one) at the time in question. This
piece is not intended to amount to a personal tribute, but it would be churlish
not to include some personal recollection, as and when appropriate.
Hailed
as significant and innovative contributors to Finland’s animation history by
the Film Journalen issue and also a
(somewhat patronisingly titled) television documentary, Berits stall – tjejmaffian/ Berit’s stable – the girl mafia (Pii
Berg and Antonia Ringbom 2014), aired on YLE5 on the 10th of October
2014, Christina Andersson, Kati Bondstam, Ia Falck, Estelle Rosenlew, Antonia
Ringbom and Camilla Mickwitz all worked with the children’s television producer
and programmer Berit Neumann between 1968 and the mid-70s. This is a segment of
women’s film history that offers multiple facets worthy of attention: gender
and hierarchies of value in relation to children’s television; creative industries
themes’ such as freelance and project based work, industry awards as
determinants of quality (Connolly, Hanretty, Hargreaves Heap and Street 2015);
barriers to the transnational flows of media in terms of language, and codes of
representation. While dealing with each of these considerations in depth is beyond
the scope here, I will aim to introduce some examples of content, as well as indicatively
consider some contextual factors, in order to situate this fragment of Finnish
animation and women’s film-making history. But the relative obscurity of this topic,
and its cultural context, prompts me to first outline something of a background
sketch.
There
is a tendency to summarise Finland’s international profile by tentative listing
of a handful of sports stars, design brands and latterly the mobile technology
giant Nokia. The country’s marginal
position, culturally speaking, seems underlined geographically. Beyond a long
land-border with Russia, it is set apart from surrounding countries by the
Baltic Sea. Speeded-up connections by air travel have not managed to render
this geographical circumstance any less psychologically potent; I grew up in
the capital of Finland with a nagging sense of being incurably tucked away in a
peripheral and parochial European region. It is perhaps unsurprising that, much
later on, reading theoretical postulations about centre-margins dichotomies had
immediate and experiential resonance.
A
relatively young nation, Finland is Nordic, but not Scandinavian, and despite
occupying a relatively large expanse of space, it has a small population and a (first)
language that shares little in common with most other European languages. Historically,
Finland in the post WW2 period has also held a somewhat singular position. Despite
a being a European free market economy and having a fraught historical and
political past with its larger, more powerful neighbour, the country maintained
close ties with the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist states in terms
of trade, but significantly also cultural links and exchanges. Why is this
relevant here? Looking at the animation that flourished in Finnish children’s
television in the 1970s it is possible to discern a fusion of influences of
1950s American limited animation, its aesthetics and principles, and the stop
motion techniques and artisan production model of Eastern European animation.
Used
by animation pioneers such as Winsor McKay and Earl Hurd (who sought to patent
the process in 1914), Walt Disney is most commonly seen as the trail blazer and
dominant figure in the history of cel animation. Cel animation involves creating
the impression of movement by overlaying static and painted backgrounds with transparent
celluloid acetate sheets, on which the figures and their movements are traced. In
a report on Finnish animation published by the Finnish Film Foundation, Juho
Gartz (1975) makes quite clear how despite the awe inspired by the technical
superiority of Disney’s productions, home grown production was galvanised more
radically by the (later) example set by UPA’s adoption of more financially
feasible practices of limited animation. Meanwhile, possibilities of stop
motion animation were vigorously explored in Eastern Europe, in particular in
the, then, Republic of Czechoslovakia.
Stop
motion animation creates movement through the physical movement of elements in
between shots in order to effect the illusion of continuous movement once
projected at a range of typically 12-24 frames per second. Time consuming and painstaking
as this is, it is still less labour intensive than Disney-style cel animation.
It does not, therefore, inherently necessitate an extensive work-force,
especially if the goal is not a feature length film. While this technique also
had proponents in the US and elsewhere, stop motion animation and puppet
animation has a rich tradition in Eastern Europe. Famous names include the Soviet
film maker Aleksandr Ptushko and the Czech Ladislas Starewitch. John Halas and Roger Manwell (1969: 236) have
accredited the proliferation of puppet animation here to longer standing folk
traditions involving carved dolls. However, it would be wrong to discount the
role of state subsidised cultural production of the socialist Eastern Bloc, which
offered a platform for individuals and small production teams to explore the
medium without the immediate pressure of sustaining profitable box office
returns. This most certainly contributed to the emergence of influential post-
WW2 creators such as Jan Šwankmajer and Jiří Trnka, the latter’s expression of
political dissent in Ruka/The Hand (1965) notwithstanding.
State
sponsored cultural production in Finland should by no means be directly
compared to that of the structures both enabling and constraining the arts in Soviet
era Eastern European countries. But, the 1970s in particular saw a pro-active
arts policy in several parts of Northern Europe (Toepler and Zimmer: 32). Arts
funding in part worked to support social democratic goals of equality and
access for consumers, but also took the form of subsidies and grants schemes
for small groups and individuals. Especially in comparatively small and young
nations such as Finland, funding of artists and cultural producers by means of
grants can be seen as an expression of the wider logic that informed Nordic cultural
policy from the beginning of the 1960s up until the mid-70s; a protective
measure against the perceived threat of commercial interests and a way of ‘strengthening
national identities through cultural policy’ (Duelund 2008: 13). According
to this understanding public funding of artistic production, including the
projects of individual and artisan cultural producers, works to protect
authenticity, innovation and quality. The idea that the good of the nation is
in need of such safe-guarding is informed by a view of the cultural industries that
has since been debunked for its paternalistic attitude towards ‘the public’, and
criticised for the dichotomy it constructs between commerce and notions of
value. And yet, despite a rather comprehensive theoretical fall from grace and
further erosion by the general political drift towards neoliberal and
market-led positions, this period of cultural policy produced some interesting
results. And while the media and
critical attention to this period in Finnish animation history has largely
focused on creator personas, the creative industries perspective is found simmering
not too far under the surface. But more on this later.
Camilla
Mickwitz, having trained as a graphic artist and worked commercially as an illustrator,
began her forays into animation under the wing of Berit Neumann, and tutelage
of Aarre Aalto who ran the YLE special effects studio (Ringbom 2014: 22) in the
late 1960s. At this point, no formal animation education was yet in place in
Finland, and home-grown Finnish animation was most prominently featured in
advertising, or as short segments in live-action programming. Juho Gartz (1975)
has traced historical connections to comic book publishing and illustration, as
well as the influential year-long stay in Helsinki in 1960-61 by Robert Balser, later famed for
his contribution to the Beatles film Yellow
Submarine (1968) and television series Jackson
Five (1971-72).
Although
the animation of Mickwitz and her contemporaries is far from characterised by
technical sophistication (Gartz 1975: 110; Uggeldahl 2014:15), it did achieve significant
critical acclaim. In fact, technical naiveté to some extent worked to underline
prestige, by defining this group’s work against the slickness, high production
values of large-scale production and ‘mass culture’ status of popular imports
(read Disney). In other words, the work by this group of animators presented an
exemplary fit with the cultural policy of the time. A far more sympathetic fit,
supported by established cultural exchange programmes between Finland and
socialist Eastern Bloc states, was found with the Eastern European craft
orientated aesthetic. However, instead of puppet animation, early Finnish
animation was more often a form of simple 2D stop motion: using cut-out pieces
of paper and making drawings ‘come alive’ by applying basic principles of
animation. This technique is, in fact, also known as cut-out animation. Many of
the creators in question made children’s books as well as animated films, also in
keeping with the Eastern European model. Seemingly driven in equal measure by
the emphasis on a singular creative vision that characterises a field of
restricted cultural production (Bourdieu 1993) and a social agenda, this was
work asserting claims for children’s culture to be taken seriously. Because access to these short films is
limited, and translation issues (cultural as well as linguistic) further
complicate their circulation, I feel that some examples of some of the stories
and the characters inhabiting these depicted worlds is needed. It will
hopefully help explain the general outlook of this particular crop of
children’s animation.
Christina
Andersson’s (1936-) very earliest film Tugsummarpojken/The
Thumbsucking Boy includes a negotiation between son and father along the
lines of ‘you quit smoking cigarettes, and I will stop sucking my thumb’
(Ringbom 2014: 22-23), Mats och hans Föräldrar/Mats and his Parents
(1971)
grappled with divorce and Jakob
Dunderskägg/Jacob Thunderbeard (1979) featured as its central character a distinctly
un-conventional child minder. As far from the prim and proper Mary Poppins as
imaginable, Jakob, a gruff and unkempt pirate captain, showed that values
beyond appearances and conventions ultimately win the day. But perhaps more significantly,
especially when considering that he made his appearance more than twenty-five
years ago, Andersson’s Jakob challenged gender assumptions in relation to child
care. Some years later, taking a broader view and more heavy-handed approach, Anima och Monstret ‘Destruktor’/ Anima and
the Monster ‘Destructor’ (1985) by Antonia Ringbom addressed threats to the
environment from nuclear power and the excesses of disposable consumer culture.
At fifty minutes this was a comparatively long film, and thus ambitious in
terms of technical scope as well as its themes.
With
a decidedly more upbeat quality characterising her body of work, Camilla Mickwitz
went on to publish more than twenty children’s books and write and produce
almost as many animated shorts. She also created the logo and ident for the children’s
television channel ‘Pikku Kakkonen’ (‘Little Two’), which is currently still in
use, and animated a long-running public information film about the dangers of
playing on thin ice. Her very first animation, to the soundtrack of ‘The Mice’s
Christmas Eve’ (which is a well-known by Norwegian songwriter Alf Prøysen), was
aired on YLE’s fledgling Swedish language children’s programme slot in 1968. From
there Mickwitz soon moved on to a more authorial approach; writing, drawing,
directing and eventually also producing her own films. In order of appearance,
her most well-known characters are a small boy called Jason, Emilia (who tells
stories with her father, Oskar), and an anarchic little witch, Mimosa, who travels
by broom-stick and generally takes it upon herself to be an instigator of disorder.
All appeared in several short animations as well as books. The first film
introducing Jason (1971) was no more than 5-6 minutes long. The film opens by
showing the simply drawn shape of a tower block as the voice-over explains:
‘many people live in this house, big people and little people’.
Jason himself is first
seen being pulled by the hand by his mother at such speed that he seemingly
flies in her wake; she can’t be late for work and must drop Jason off at the child
minder beforehand. Jason’s mother works on the production line in a factory,
but earns extra cash as a life-drawing model for evening classes at the art
school. In a provocative move, Mickwitz shows her posing between easels, a
thought bubble revealing that she’s thinking about the new winter coat she wants
to buy for Jason with her wages. The story details aspects of the everyday life
this small family unit: watching television together, Jason playing with his
friends and baking at the child-minder’s flat, a trip to the hair- dresser’s
and the treat of an ice-cream cone bought from a small kiosk. But despite its hum-drum
social realism the approach is far from down-beat.
As unsentimental as it is
visually rich, this is a vibrant colour-world conjured by crayons and water
soluble pencils and characterised by an assured graphic style and sensibility.
The single parent family is represented but never explained, commented or
elaborated on. In the later, and at 13 minutes slightly longer, Jason’s Summer (1973), Jason and his
mother escape the dust and grime of the big city to stay in a rural guest house
run by an elderly lady. Here Jason watches the various guests who all holiday in
the villa while observing strict social protocols not to invade each other’s
personal space. He eventually decides that this is a predictable and dull state
of affairs, and by pushing all the small tables in the dining room together
forces everybody to get to know each other.
Sharing,
intergenerational relationships and the foibles and (ultimately redeemable) shortcomings
of adults are recurring themes in Mickwitz’ work. In another Jason story, Angry
Agnes, the bad-tempered neighbour who complains about noise on the landing, has
an unexpected change of heart. When tooth-ache causes Agnes to swaddle her head
in a thick shawl, she finds the isolation of complete silence disconcerting.
This helps her realise that rather than just aggravating noise, sounds of other
people in the building are in fact reassuring signs that she is not all alone.
The Emilia stories tackle a variety of topics: sea pollution (Emilia and The Twins); totalitarianism and
simultaneously the power relations between big people and small people (Emilia and King Oscar); elderly ladies reclaiming
a sense of purpose as they interact with neighbourhood children (Emilia and Three Little Old Ladies); and
not least, the story about the small boy who, despite wishing for a doll to
dress and bathe and play with, only ever receives toy cars and trucks on
birthdays and Christmases (Emilia and the
Doll).
Presumably as a result of
his thwarted childhood desires, when as an adult this protagonist meets a girl
who looks exactly like a doll, he finds her irresistible and they soon move in
together. But Nora (with a none-too-subtle nod to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen)
eventually outgrows the doll’s house he has built for her and she leaves. The
story ends by a conciliation on a park bench, as Nora (in a more fresh-faced
and less frilly incarnation) and her newly re-constructed man agree that real
persons are not objects to be owned. Perhaps a tad clunky, but as a politically
engaged film aimed for child audiences, it also seems remarkably ahead of its
time. Presenting a clear and radical counterpoint to the gender politics
associated with Disney princess films, this contribution in fact significantly
pre-dates the majority of them, with the exception of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937), Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping
Beauty (1959). So evidently, stylistic markers and production models are
not the only aspects worthy of consideration. I think it is true to say that
the public funding model and cultural policy that contributed to this work’s
emergence, in effect, reproduces the ‘charismatic ideology’ (Bourdieu 1996/1992:
167, cited by Hesmondhalgh 2006: 212) and consecrates of the individual creator.
At the same time, it enabled the production and circulation of perspectives and
values not necessarily made available in dominant market-led cultural
production, producing added breadth in terms of resources for the construction
of subjectivities and identities. The observational humour and determined social
engagement that characterises this work is no less pronounced than the deliberately
hand-crafted aesthetic.
Within
the relatively small-scale national context of these films, their profile as
domestically produced and pioneering products was further bolstered by critical
attention in the form of awards. Prizes and awards are important mechanisms for
attributing value by means of industry/peer recognition (Hanretty, Connolly,
Street and Hargreaves-Heap 2015: 268). And as in any kind of award and grants
economy, also familiar in academic contexts, having proven ability to attract
funding significantly adds weight to future proposals. It is therefore a
crucial consideration. International film festivals, and especially animation
festivals such as the ones held in Bratislava and Annecy were not just
networking opportunities. Recognition abroad reverberated back home with
considerable effect. Andersson was awarded a prize from the Prix Jeunesse Foundation in Munich in
1972, which was followed by several domestic awards. Mickwitz also has a
considerable list of Finnish prizes and accolades. Among others, she was
awarded the Finnish State Award for Children’s Literature in 1973, and again in
1976 and 1986, followed by the State Award for Children’s Culture a year later.
However, most commentaries on her career focus their attention on a prize given
at the Hollywood International Television
Awards in 1974. Despite its grand name, this was in fact a small and local industry
festival that did not achieve the longevity of some of its competitors, and has
since disappeared without trace from festival listing and archives. It is
likely that the film was originally submitted by YLE as part of a promotional
drive; exposure aimed to drum up interest from overseas networks. When the film
was selected for special commendation, this recognition of a Finnish animator
(with the instant glamour of the Hollywood name and kudos of the ‘International’
in its title) was picked up by the main national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. This in turn ignited interest
from a slew of women’s magazines. This short-lived, but nonetheless potently frothy
flurry of attention helped cement the idea of Mickwitz as a figure of note on
the Finnish cultural scene. The chimera of ‘the Hollywood prize’ still lingers seductively
and has become a staple in narratives surrounding Mickwitz’ contribution to
Finnish animation and children’s culture.
Confirmations
of international recognition are thus an important element in this particularly
fertile and productive period in the history of Finnish animation. But despite
such industry acknowledgements, and despite being showcased at larger European
trade-fairs, most of these animated shorts were taken up and bought mainly by other
Nordic broadcasters. It would seem that single parent families, artist’s models
and the revolutionary overthrow of authoritarian patriarchs was deemed
inappropriate content for children’s television further afield. Granted, this
was several decades ago.
But although topics such
as marine pollution (Emilia och
Tvillingarna/ Emilia and The Twins) would be unlikely to raise objections
today, I struggle to imagine Jason’s mother’s evening job depicted on our
screens even now. This display of asexual nudity (a concept that seems utterly incomprehensible
beyond a Nordic setting), especially in the context of children’s programming, would
surely cause extreme reactions.
Time
to return to issues of production. This particular interlude of Finland’s
public broadcasting corporation YLE, and in particular its Swedish language
children’s television, as a showcase and conduit for artisan animation came to
an end in 1975 due to a pay dispute. The work produced by this group of
creators was on a freelance basis, and considering the labour intensive
processes involved, it is perhaps unsurprising that the lack of contracts and conditions
of pay eventually brought about this eventual collapse. Ia Falck (Ringbom 2014:
23) recollects limited understanding of the time scale involved in animation on
the part of YLE’s finance department and studio booking system. Moreover, the
conditions under which much of this work was produced, gave YLE the complete copyright
to all of the films. Hence none of them have been released on video, or DVD[ii]. Antonia Ringbom (ibid:
25) explains how the women animators decided to join the union for freelance
programme employees (FOT), which organised editors, graphic artists and others
who were mainly employees of YLE, but working to fixed-term and project-based
contracts. 1975 saw the first round of strike actions, and an organised boycott
meant no more animation would be produced for the corporation. For some of the
women who had collaborated with Neumann’s children’s TV department, these
development prompted new directions and a move into other forms of production.
But for Mickwitz this did not spell the end. She continued to build on a body
of work that has come to, for some, earn her the moniker ‘the godmother of cut-out
animation’ (Fransberg 1994:81, cited by Uggeldahl 2014: 16). From 1976 to her
pre-mature death from an aneurism in 1989, Mickwitz created a large number of
films with the independent production company Epidem. Having an established reputation
no doubt facilitated further production grants from the Finnish Film
Foundation, and YLE now had to pay fees when broadcasting her films.
There
are complex dynamics of cultural value at work in this narrative, and the
uneven relations outlined above, between the symbolic sway of awards and
accolades and the power struggles between institutional structures and
producers working under untenable economic conditions and terms of employment
is one such tension. Another is the
status of children’s media and culture in relation to cultural fare aimed for adults.
According to a purely (simplistic) economic analysis it is logical that
attention and effort should be concentrated on producing cultural goods with
appeal to the parts of the population with the most disposable income. But such
an instrumentalist view only gives a partial account, and there are other
factors to consider, as well as the consequences. Viewing children’s culture as
being of lesser consequence clearly has implications for producers of
children’s culture, and the conditions under which they produce their work. Children
have also notably been deemed a demographic that is particularly vulnerable to
the damaging ‘effects’ of media products, and therefore in need of protection
by codes and censorship. Connected to this, yet a quite separate, if equally thorny
issue is the idea of ‘childhood innocence’ as a quality in need of
safe-guarding. Cultural constructions of childhood present complicated debates,
and would quickly take me beyond the scope of this contribution. But power
relations between adults and children was a noticeable concern in much of this
glut of early 1970s Finnish animation, as was the refusal to patronise young
viewers by preconceived notions of what kind of content is suitable for them. I
would suggest that a key characteristic of these films is that the children
depicted in the films, as well as the
audiences the films are created for and addressed to, are fundamentally conceived
as actors with social and political agency.
And
last, but certainly not least, it is unlikely to be mere coincidence that all
of the animators in this group are women. In a patriarchal social structure the
nurture of, in particular young and pre-school, children is a traditionally female
domain, and the gendered allocation of professional roles some forty years ago
would have been more normative than might
be the case today. Some of the attitudes by which these producers were met in
the institutional contexts in which they initially developed their
story-telling techniques would have been coloured by condescension both on the
grounds that they were making work for children and that they were women. But the
1970s also included lively and loud challenges to the status quo, as
exemplified by feminist and environmental movements. And the work by the women
creators of this particular time and place is undeniably suffused by such a
zeitgeist. Ringbom (2014: 25) points out the revolutionary spirit of 1968 as a
profound influence for their generation, stating that ‘we wanted to impact the
future, the whole world, through children’ (my translation), no less. With
hindsight such earnestness might seem gauche. Yet the ambition exuding from the
work of these women animators is difficult to deny, as it covers both textual content
and the instigation of new working practices within the existing institutional
frameworks.
Perhaps
the best way to sum up will be by conjuring from personal memory. High/low culture
and avant-garde/mass trash distinctions were never in question in my childhood
home, nor was the privileging of individual creative genius. Mediocrity and
petit-bourgeois convention were dispatched with disdain in accordance with the worst
snobbishness of bohemian traditions. At the same time, and somehow unencumbered
by the inherent paradox, the robustly socio-political agenda of my mother and
her colleagues is testament to a progressive politics of change, equality and
social responsibility.
My
aim in writing this piece has been to insert what I consider a simultaneously vibrant
and contradictory historical fragment into a broader transnational context of women’s
film heritage and animation history. Going back to my earlier comments about
centres and margins, I feel this history deserves some form of presence and
connection beyond the northern shores of the Baltic Sea.
Sources
Bourdieu,
Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural
Production. Cambridge: Polity.
Duelund,
Peter. 2008. ‘Nordic Cultural Policies: a critical view’, International Journal of Cultural Policy 14 (1): 7–24.
Gartz, Juho. 1975. Elävöitettyjä Kuvia: raportti suomalaisesta
animaatioelokuvasta/Animated Pictures: a report on Finnish animated film.
Helsinki: Finnish Film Foundation.
Halas, John and Roger Manwell. 1969. The
Technique of Film Animation. London: Focal Press.
Hanretty, Chris, Sara Connolly, John Street,
and Shaun Hargreaves-Heap. 2015. ‘What makes for prize-winning television?’ European Journal of Communication 30 (3): 267 –284.
Hesmondhalgh,
Devid. 2006. ‘Bourdieu, the Media and Cultural Production.’ Media, Culture & Society 28 (2):
211–23.
Minkkinen, Johanna. 2014.
‘Film Centrum Vill Bevara den Finlandssvenska kulturskatten’/ ‘Film Centre Wants
to Restore a Cultural Treasure’, Film
Journalen 3: 36-37.
Ringbom, Antonia. 2014.
‘Den Animerade Tjejmaffian’/’The Animated Girl Mafia.’ Film Journalen 3: 20-25.
Toepler, Stefan and
Annette Zimmer. 2002. ‘Subsidizing the Arts: art and government in Western
Europe and The United States’. In Global Culture: Media, Arts, Policy, and
Globalization, edited by Diana
Crane, Nobuko Kawashima and Kenichi Kawasaki, 29-48. Hove: Psychology Press.
Uggeldahl, Krister. 2014.
‘Teckna, Klippa, Knåpa, Plåta: Femtio år av Finlandssvenk barnkammaranimation’/
‘Draw, Cut, Craft, Shoot: Fifty Years of Swedish Language Kids’ Animation in
Finland.’ Film Journalen 3: 14-18.
Camilla Mickwitz
Filmography:
1968 Hiirten jouluaatto/ The Mice’s
Christmas Eve
1969-1971 Max ja Murre/Max and Murre
1971 Pikku Kanin hassu päivä/ Small Rabbit’s Funny Day (with Kati Bondestam)
1972 Sormus/The Ring
1972 Jason
1973 Jason ja Frans/ Jason and Frank
1973 Jasonin kesä/Jason’s Summer
1974 Jason ja vihainen Viivi/ Jason and Angry Agnes
1976 Ollaan yhdessä/ We’re Together
1976-1979 The Emilia series:
1969-1971 Max ja Murre/Max and Murre
1971 Pikku Kanin hassu päivä/ Small Rabbit’s Funny Day (with Kati Bondestam)
1972 Sormus/The Ring
1972 Jason
1973 Jason ja Frans/ Jason and Frank
1973 Jasonin kesä/Jason’s Summer
1974 Jason ja vihainen Viivi/ Jason and Angry Agnes
1976 Ollaan yhdessä/ We’re Together
1976-1979 The Emilia series:
Emilia ja omenapuumetsä/ Emilia and the Orchard,
Emilia ja Kolme Pikkuista Tätiä/Emilia and Three Little Old Ladies, Emilia ja Kuningas
Oskari/Emilia and King Oscar, Emilia ja Nukke/Emilia and the Doll, Emilia ja Onni/
Emilia and Happiness, Emilia ja Kaksoset/Emilia and the Twins.
1982 Mimosa
1985 ...Ja sinusta tulee pelle/ …And you get to be the clown
1987 Mimosan syntymäyö/ Mimosa’s Birthnight
1989 Pieni enkeli/ Little Angel
[i] Officially a bi-lingual country, Finland
has a population of just under 5 and a half million, 5.5 % of which is Swedish
speaking.
[ii] The recent publication of a dvd of
Mickwitz’ work (2014) includes only her later output, produced with Epidem, which according to web pages in
honour of the centenary of Finnish animation production, is the oldest Finnish
production company specialising in animation.
