The mouse Millie embarks on a perilous journey to rescue her friend Morten from a fearsome crocodile, with the help of unlikely allies and a magical stone.
Millie, an orphaned mouse, is living with a family of loving hedgehogs. She is afraid of everything, especially the crocodile who bit off her tail when she was a baby. Her only friend is Morten, the son in the family. One day their football ends up in the river and Morten tries to get it, but falls in and is carried away.
Terrified, Millie knows she has to find Morten. She sets out on a journey accompanied by a frog, Archimedes. As they travel down the river, Millie struggles to find the courage she needs. With the help of an old turtle who has a magical courage stone, Millie finds the strength to face her fears.
The river leads them to a lake where the crocodile has laid her eggs and demands that all animals bring food and toys to ensure her children's happiness or face the consequences. The crocodile says; you are either fun or you are food.
Millie sneaks onto the island, but is discovered and thrown in prison without the courage stone. Determined to save Morten, she enlists the help of Archimedes, now part of the crocodile army, for a daring mission to break out of her cell, retrieve the stone and free the captive animals. She must use all her new skills to escape.
As they flee, the crocodile breaks down. She is afraid to be alone and secretly afraid of water after being flushed in a toilet as a baby. Millie shows mercy, passing the courage stone to to the crocodile and promise to help. In the end, everyone lives in peace by the lake and the crocodile learns to swim.
Directors statement
I have always loved animated films that felt special. Not just something that tries to make the audience laugh, but something more. From early on, the Moomins did this, later everything from Studio Ghibli. They can make me laugh, but they do so much more. They create universes that the audience likes to spend time in and characters that are highly relatable.
I believe this story about Millie’s journey and challenges can be something special that the audience will love. I clearly remember what it was like to gather courage for something I wanted to do as a kid. The effort it took and the inner struggle. As a father I have seen both my kids preparing to conquer their little part of the world. Diving into the deep end of the pool or walking into a new school. One of my children is afraid of everything, so this is a subject that is very close to my heart.
As a film maker I have seen all my films with audiences many times. Some of them have been challenging and I have seen how the children cope. How they overcome the dangerous scene in the film and how their hearts grow from that. This film is not a challenging film, but a film about overcoming challenges. I want everyone to root for Millie and cheer when she succeeds. And I want them to laugh.
ESBEN TOFT JACOBSEN started out as a computer games director. He graduated from The Danish Film School as an animation director in 2006 with his successful animated short film Having a Brother. After that, he co-wrote and directed his two animated feature films The Great Bear and Beyond Beyond. He is now running his own company Vi Glæder os Preben since 2019.
He was part of creating the first Scandinavian Netflix Original The Rain with Christian Potalivo and Jannik Tai Mosholt, where he, apart from working as a creator, also worked as visual supervisor. He is one of the head teachers at the Danish Film School for the animation director program, shared responsibility with three other animation directors from the Danish industry.
At the moment he is developing several projects with Petter Lindblad at Snowcloud Films (SE), and is in production with Lindblad, Christian Potalivo and Asta Stuhr at Tall & Small (DK).
DirectorEsben Toft Jacobsen
ProducerPetter Lindblad
ScreenwriterEsben Toft Jacobsen
Production countriesSweden, Denmark, Netherlands, The
Swedish production company focusing on projects for children and youths, mainly animation. Specialising in low-cost, lean productions with high quality screen results. Own projects as well as co-producing internationally.
The company was founded in 2014 by producer Petter Lindblad, formerly full-time producer at Copenhagen Bombay for over seven years and before then he worked at Zentropa. He built the Swedish branch for Copenhagen Bombay in 2010 and ran it on behalf of the Danish owners.
Besides developing and producing own content, we also do consulting for other companies as a producer, in financing, production setup, technical supervision etc, as well as hold courses in production planning and budgeting, for example at Animation Sans Frontieres.
We have an ambition to co-produce our projects internationally, to be able to find the best partners and creative people, as well as broadening the possibilities of financing sources.
This is the fifth feature film (co)produced by Snowcloud Films and the third animated feature film Petter produces that is directed by Esben Toft Jacobsen. And the third co-production between Snowcloud Films and Viking Film (NL).
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