15/06/2005

The Galway-based animation studios Magma Films and their German sister company Ullysses GmbH have teamed up with the Danish A Film A/S and the French Futurikon to co-produce a feature film as well as a 26 half hour TV series based on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairytale "The Ugly Duckling."

This €15m European animation project combining innovative 3D techniques with sharp dialogue written in Ireland for a world distribution will coincide with Hans Christian Andersen’s 200th Anniversary celebrations.
The feature film version called The Ugly Duckling And Me tells the story of Ugly Duckling and his father Ratso the rat who found himself forced to take responsibility for the little misfit creature, while the TV series will take a closer look at the hilarious life that Ugly and Ratso have inside the duck yard.

"We have managed to create very cute and funny 3D characters of the highest quality," said Karsten Killerich, animator co-founder of A Film. "It’s fantastic how we transformed the quality of the feature characters to the TV series."
Seamus Mulligan, managing director of Magma Film also said: "It took us more than two years to get the financing and all contracts together, but I’m sure that Ugly Duckling And Me will be a fantastic movie with huge international potential."

This major European animation project was pre-bought for theatrical distribution by Eclipse (Ireland), Nordisk Film (Scandinavia), Warner Bros (Germany), and Gebeka (France) and co-producing broadcasters with editorial input include TV2 Denmark, M6 France (also handling international sales), and ARD/WDR. Extra public funding was provided by the Irish Film Board and Section 481, the DFI - Danish Film Institute, the CNC, the Nordic Film & TV Fund, FFA in Berlin, Eurimages and the Media Programme.