# Short films > Films by Marjut Rimminen, 1972 to 2007: Many Happy Returns, The Stain, Learned by Heart, Some Protection, Urpo and Turpo, I'm not a Feminist, but… and more, with stills, quotes, awards and credits. This is the Markdown rendering of [https://marjutrimminen.com/films/](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/), generated from the page itself. It carries the same words in the same order, with every image reduced to its description. The short map for machines is at [https://marjutrimminen.com/llms.txt](https://marjutrimminen.com/llms.txt). This page in Finnish is at [https://marjutrimminen.com/fi/lyhytelokuvat/](https://marjutrimminen.com/fi/lyhytelokuvat/). ### Many Happy Returns 1996 · 16mm / Digibeta · 8 minutes Video: [Many Happy Returns on Vimeo](https://player.vimeo.com/video/398310311?dnt=1&byline=0&portrait=0&title=0) ![Still from Many Happy Returns, a lone figure with a bag walking away down a snowy street between bare trees](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/many-happy-returns/many-happy-returns-1996-figure-walking-snowy-street.jpg) The disjointed debris of our childhood state still lurking within our adult consciousness act as a painful, disruptive force. A ghost-like little girl keeps tapping on a woman's consciousness, demanding attention, recalling a traumatic childhood event and thus distorting her experience of the present. Paper-mâché puppets, drawn animation, computer animation, and lightly altered live action share the frame. A door slams or a mirror catches a glance, and the present collapses into the past. ![Still from Many Happy Returns, white tulips, a dandelion clock in a glass sphere, a china rabbit and a tiny figure inside a glass jar](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/many-happy-returns/many-happy-returns-1996-tulips-glass-jar-tiny-figure.jpg) Marjut had strabismus as a child, and remembers her mother's distracted, sad way of looking through her. The ghost-like child of the film is a version of that earlier self. > A compelling work which succeeds in subverting conventional definitions of story-telling, animation and cinema. > > – Tampere International Short Film Festival jury, 5 March 1997 > The animation resurrects the repressed and transparent child and forces the spectators to truly see her, not only with the help of their eyes. > > – Frames Cinema Journal, on the haptic spectatorship of the film > It is like a kick in the kidneys. > > – Thomas Basgier, Animation World Network Magazine, 2 July 1997 > It was terribly upsetting because you don't get that contact with people. My mother had this very depressed and sad way of looking through you. > > – Marjut Rimminen, on her childhood strabismus, in conversation about the making of the film - 🏆 **Grand Prix**, 1997 [Tampere International Short Film Festival](https://tamperefilmfestival.fi/en/about-us/archive/international-competition-awards/) - 🥈 **Second Prize, Best Computer Assisted Animation**, 1997 [Los Angeles World Animation Celebration](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/wac-wac-wac-1997-world-animation-celebration) - 🥈 **Jury Special Prize**, 1997 [Krakow International Short Film Festival](https://www.krakowfilmfestival.pl/en/) - 🥇 **The Grand Animation Prize**, 1997 [Vila do Conde Short Film Festival](https://www.festival.curtas.pt/filme/film-1997029/) - 🥇 **First Prize**, 1997 [Fantoche International Animation Festival](https://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.7/2.7pages/2.7basgierfantoche.html) - 🥉 **Honorary Distinction for Best Animation**, 1997 Drama International Short Film Festival - **Finalist**, 1998 [British Animation Awards](https://www.britishanimationawards.com/raising-the-baas/marjut-rimminen/) - 🥇 **Directors' Choice Award** for Most Innovative Animation Work, 1998 Images Festival, Toronto **Credits** - Words: Harriett Gilbert - Father and Young Man: Kevin O'Donohoe - Mother and Young Woman: Sarah Strickett - Voices: Anthony May, Melanie Hudson, Camilla Hunsley - Live-action design and production: Daniel Simpson, Adam Cutts, Mark Sewell - Lighting: Layne Comarasawmy - Editing and sound: Tony Fish - Sound and dubbing: Nigel Heath - Digital compositing: Timo Arnall - Director and animator: Marjut Rimminen - Producer: Lee Stork - Production: A Tricky Films production for Channel 4 - Distribution: Channel Four International ### The Stain 1991 · 16mm · 11 minutes A film by Marjut Rimminen and Christine Roche Video: [The Stain on Vimeo](https://player.vimeo.com/video/398311747?dnt=1&byline=0&portrait=0&title=0) ![Still from The Stain, puppet figures around a dining table](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/the-stain/the-stain-1991-puppet-figures-dining-table.jpg) Triggered by an actual news item about suicidal octogenarian twins, The Stain is a dark, domestic thriller which uses drawn, puppet, pixilation and live-action animation styles to spin a claustrophobic web of incest and intrigue. ![Still from The Stain, drawn animation, family scene](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/the-stain/the-stain-1991-drawn-family-scene-pram.jpg) > An examination of incest and sex abuse within the nuclear family. … The Freudian ability of animators deftly to display the motives behind the mask is one of the great strengths of the form. Animation can handle difficult delicate topics with extraordinary lightness and perception. > > – Jeanette Winterson, Sight and Sound, October 1992 > An imaginative animated fable about the benefits of family life: envy, incest, murder. With all the sinister simplicity of a tale by Edward Gorey, it is exactly the sort of thing that distributors should be picking up as support for their new features. > > – Waldo Lydecker, Time Out, 31 July 1991 > This is a kind of crusade for me. From the very moment I discovered animation, I sensed that it could deal with life's complex issues and be more powerful in it than live action. We receive animation differently. By not being real, animation can seduce the viewer to look at something he rather does not, and reach beyond the eyes, directly to the emotions of the viewer. > > – Marjut Rimminen, Edwin Carels interview, Annecy 1993 - 🥈 **Special Jury Prize**, 1992 [Hiroshima International Animation Festival](https://www.hiroanim.org/en2014/en_history/past04e.html) - 🥈 **Special Jury Prize**, 1992 San Francisco International Film Festival **Credits** - Narration: Chrissie Roberts - Words: Harriett Gilbert - Research consultant: Julia Vellacott - Design: Christine Roche - Animation: Marjut Rimminen - Additional animation: Jeff Goldner, Heini Kauppinen - Assistant animators: Gail Walton, Shelley McIntosh, Isabel Radage - Painting: Sarah Strickett, Sam Padget - Checking: Debra Thaine - Set construction and electrician: Dick Arnall - Silversmith: Pierre Marchand - Rostrum camera: Heather Reader at Bob Godfrey Films - Lighting and camera: Cathy Greenhalgh - Editing and sound: Tony Fish, Peter Hearn at Picturehead Productions - Dubbing mixer: Ian Selwyn at Studio Sound - Music: Dick Heckstall-Smith, Dave Moore, Verdi, Schumann - Producer: Orly Yadin - Production: A Smoothcloud Production for Channel Four Television - Distribution: Channel Four International ### Learned by Heart / Sydämeen kätketty 2007 · Documentary animation · 29 minutes A film by Marjut Rimminen and Päivi Takala Video: [Learned by Heart on Vimeo](https://player.vimeo.com/video/398306915?dnt=1&byline=0&portrait=0&title=0) Password: Marjut. The film contains material with rights restrictions. ![Still from Learned by Heart, vintage wedding photograph](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/learned-by-heart/learned-by-heart-2007-vintage-wedding-photograph.jpg) Finland emerged from the Second World War in a schizophrenic state, having survived two wars against the Soviet Union with her independence intact, but having officially come out on the losing side. The film explores post-war adjustment in five episodes, examining how fathers struggled with civilian life after combat while mothers took control of household organisation. ![Still from Learned by Heart, anti-Vietnam protest](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/learned-by-heart/learned-by-heart-2007-anti-vietnam-protest.jpg) > A charged and deeply personal creative collaboration with composer and co-director Päivi Takala that steps unflinchingly into the charged territory of generational relations, historical amnesia and the secret agendas of the human heart. > > – Mark Webber, Secret Cinema, March 2007 ![Still from Learned by Heart, figure walking in snow with handwritten text](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/learned-by-heart/learned-by-heart-2007-figure-walking-in-snow-handwriting.jpg) - **International Premiere**, 2007 [IDFA, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam](https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/739ccabe-1263-4a44-83be-e32aa78ca5c4/learned-by-heart) **Credits** - Screenplay: Marjut Rimminen, Päivi Takala - Direction: Marjut Rimminen, Päivi Takala - Cinematography: Marjut Rimminen, Kari Sohlberg - Editing: Tony Fish - Sound: Patrick Boullenger, Päivi Takala - Music: Päivi Takala - Producer: Anna-Kaisa Sukura for Soundsgood Productions Oy - Executive producer: Päivi Takala for Soundsgood Productions Oy - Broadcast: YLE ### Some Protection 1987 · 16mm · 9 minutes Part of Blind Justice, a four-part Channel 4 series on women and the law Video: [Some Protection on Vimeo](https://player.vimeo.com/video/398308714?dnt=1&byline=0&portrait=0&title=0) ![Still from Some Protection, prison cell](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/some-protection/some-protection-1987-josie-prison-cell.jpg) An animated documentary based on the true story of Josie O'Dwyer, with her own voice as personal commentary. The film shows the devastating effect that detention and imprisonment have on young girls who are sent in "for their own protection". ![Still from Some Protection, Josie walking past neon lettering that reads GO away, an EXIT sign behind her](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/some-protection/some-protection-1987-josie-neon-go-away-sign.jpg) ![Still from Some Protection, HMP gates](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/some-protection/some-protection-1987-josie-hmp-prison-gates.jpg) > The impact of Some Protection owes much to her ability to evoke visually and kinetically the moods, emotions and feelings of the protagonist, Josie O'Dwyer, as she narrates the true story of her experiences of detention and imprisonment. > > – James Leahy, The Guardian, 5 November 1987 > It is widely assumed that documentary is about Griersonian grit, Flaherty fact and Wiseman wisdom, but this is to neglect the rich and varied tradition of documentary in the animated film. From Winsor McCay's Sinking of the Lusitania, to Marjut Rimminen's subjective documentary Some Protection, to Jan Svankmajer's The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia. Animation has documented the personal, social and political events that have shaped the world. > > – Dr Paul Wells, National Film Theatre lecture, November 1996 > As an animator, I function best in my room, in a kind of solitary confinement. When Josie says the only escape from horrible reality was to go inside her head, I understood that very well. > > – Marjut Rimminen, Jayne Pilling, Women and Animation, BFI - **Finalist, Best Film**, 1988 [British Animation Awards](https://www.animatormag.com/archive/issue-28/issue-28-page-6/) - **Finalist, Best Sound Track**, 1988 [British Animation Awards](https://www.animatormag.com/archive/issue-28/issue-28-page-6/) **Credits** - Research: Gail Pearce - Design and animation: Marjut Rimminen - Assistant animation: Kathleen Houston - Painting: Adrian Kern, Vanessa Luther-Smith, Stoney Parsons, Debra Thaine - Rostrum camera: Heather Reader - Editing and sound: Picturehead Production - Narration: Josie O'Dwyer - Voices: David Goodland, Jaqueline Holborough, Josie O'Dwyer - Director: Marjut Rimminen - Producer: Orly Yadin - Production: A Smoothcloud Production for Channel Four Television ### Urpo and Turpo 1996 · 35mm · 13 episodes Animated television series, directed by Liisa Helminen and Marjut Rimminen, based on Hannele Huovi's books ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, Turpo (red) and Urpo (grey) standing side by side in their nappies](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-turpo-and-urpo-side-by-side.jpg) A Finnish stop-motion animated television series for children, based on Hannele Huovi's books. Teddy bears Urpo and Turpo live on a bookshelf in the children's room and are avaricious readers, particularly of the classics. Marjut's directorial approach was to emphasise the bears' imaginations and to film what they saw from a child's eye level. Each episode begins from the bookshelf and rebuilds the rest of the bedroom into somewhere else. A stack of clean folded laundry becomes the princess's pile of mattresses; toy blocks scribbled in marker pen turn into a castle's keep; a plastic saw and a tea-towel apron set up a hospital. The imagined worlds are built out of whatever is already on the carpet. ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, the bears playing knights atop a castle made from drawn-on wooden blocks](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-bears-as-knights-block-castle.jpg) ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, Urpo beside a stack of folded laundry that has become the princess's mattresses](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-urpo-folded-laundry-mattresses.jpg) She paced the two bears differently in the animation. Turpo, the red one, leaps before he thinks: spontaneous action and perpetual movement. Urpo, in grey, is pensive and sensitive, with a lively imagination. Turpo lurches from one pose to the next; Urpo lingers, looks, considers. ![Still from Urpo and Turpo, Turpo in a surgeon's mask wielding a toy saw](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/urpo-turpo/urpo-and-turpo-1996-turpo-surgeon-mask-toy-saw.jpg) > You don't need to speak slowly and loudly to children. Small minds move fast and anything but linearly. From whim to whim, jumping wildly from one thing to another. > > – Marjut Rimminen, Kotiliesi, 4 October 1996 > Urpo and Turpo are without a doubt Finland's funniest bears. Children, adults and critics alike fell in love first with the books and then with the autumn animated series. For animator Marjut Rimminen, the series was a new challenge. > > – Kirsi Riipinen, Kotiliesi, 4 October 1996 > Urpo and Turpo, better than Toy Story. > > – Ilta Sanomat, film review, 1996 ### I'm not a Feminist, but… 1986 · 35mm · 7 minutes Adapted from the cartoons and drawings of Christine Roche Video: [I'm not a Feminist, but… on Vimeo](https://player.vimeo.com/video/1030829914?dnt=1&byline=0&portrait=0&title=0) ![Still from I'm not a Feminist, but… A woman in a blue polka-dot dress reading a letter in an armchair, a man's legs on the floor beside her](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/not-feminist/im-not-a-feminist-but-1986-woman-reading-letter-armchair.jpg) Watch out: if you insist on saying "I'm not a Feminist, but…", then you may well find yourself pushing the old man over the edge or behind the sofa, as the case may be. > Rimminen's feminism has a playful and ironic element to it; her films show just how possible it is to combine critical cinema and entertainment. > > – Ulrich Wegenast, Trickfilm Festival Stuttgart retrospective, April 1998 - 🥈 **Special Jury Prize**, 1986 [Cinanima International Animation Festival](https://cinanima.pt/en/), Portugal **Credits** - Animation: Marjut Rimminen - Additional animation: Jeff Goldner, Spud Houston - Tracing: Gail Pearce, Christine Dawe, Russel Murch, Christine Roche - Painting: Debra Thaine, Denise Hambry, Stoney Parsons, Chris Rayment, Tessa Sheridan - Rostrum camera: Cartoon Camera Co, Wolff Productions, Begonia Tamarit - Editing and sound: Charlotte Evans - Voices: Glynis Brooks, David Tate, Anita West - Music: Composed and performed by Dick Heckstall-Smith and Dave Moore. Sung by Lorna Rowe and Tracy King. - Director: Marjut Rimminen - Producer: Dick Arnall - Production: A Marjut Rimminen Animation production in association with Channel Four Television ### Trip to Eternity / Matka ikuisuuteen 1972 · 16mm · 2 minutes A film by Marjut and Sakari Rimminen An actor is prepared for the final shot in this pastiche of filmmaking. A macabre comedy sketch by sister and brother. - 🥉 **Honourable Mention**, 1973 Lübeck Film Festival **Credits** - Direction, design, animation, painting, camera, editing, sound: Marjut and Sakari Rimminen, every role on the film attributed jointly in the original credits - Production: A Rimminen and Rimminen production for YLE and Suomen elokuvasäätiö - Distribution: Elokuvakontakti ### The Bridge / Silta 1982 · 35mm · 8 minutes 43 seconds A man and a woman engage in a desperate battle between gloom and hope. > The Bridge by Marjut Rimminen is one of the finest Finnish animations through decades. It is a satire of war and peace, of optimism and pessimism. It explores the limitations of our reality with black humour. It is about the struggle between hope and despair, that neither of them wins, but life goes on. > > – Tampere Film Festival 1998 retrospective - 🏅 **Valtion laatutuki**, 1983, Finnish State Quality Grant **Credits** - Script, design, animation, direction: Marjut Rimminen - Editing: Oskari Viskari - Rostrum camera: Lauri Pitkänen - Music: Joe Davidow - Producer: Mikael Wahlforss - Production: Epidem - Financed by: YLE, Swedish Radio, Suomen elokuvasäätiö ### The Frog King 1989 · 35mm · 7 minutes Marjut's interpretation of the Brothers Grimm tale. One of thirteen shorts in ITV's Magic Mirror anthology, produced by Ragdoll for Kellogg's and broadcast in December 1989. - 🥇 **Winner**, 1989 Magic Mirror animated fairytale competition (Kellogg's / ITV) **Credits** - Script: Simon Bent - Design and animation: Marjut Rimminen - Additional animation: Jeff Goldner, Kathleen Houston, Sarah Vincent - Assistant animators: Vanessa Luther-Smith, Caroline Cole - Painting: Heini Kauppinen, Susan Edwards, Sheila Eaton - Checking: Stoney Parsons - Rostrum camera: Heather Reader - Editing and sound: Picturehead Productions - Voices: Denise Bryer, Peter Hawkins - Director: Marjut Rimminen - Producer: Ragdoll Productions for Kellogg's ### Absolut Marjut Rimminen 1996 · BetaSP · 2 minutes Part of the Absolut Panushka Experimental Animation Website. Twenty-four animators were each asked to interpret the classic Absolut bottle silhouette in their own distinctive styles, ten seconds each. The first website on the Internet to exhibit experimental animation. Absolut Marjut Rimminen is an edited compilation of all the experiments she made for it. - 🥇 **Joop Geesink Prize** for Best Campaign, 1996 [Holland Animation Film Festival](https://haff.nl/en/), Utrecht - 🥇 **Best Animation Produced for the Internet**, 1997 Los Angeles World Animation Celebration - **Cool Design Award finalist**, 1997 Cool Site of the Year - 🥉 **Honourable Mention**, 1997 Communications Art Interactive Design Annual **Credits** - Animation, compositing, direction: Marjut Rimminen - Editing: Tamara MacLachlan - Producer: Debra Callabresi - Production: Troons Ltd - Client: Absolut Vodka ### Mixed Feelings 1998 · BetaSP · 4 × 3 minutes Episodes "Virginia" and "Anita", directed by Marjut Rimminen and Gillian Lacey A series of four programmes for Channel 4's Whose Choice? season, commemorating thirty years since the change of the abortion law in England. Virginia's and Anita's stories are the first two of four personal accounts of different experiences of abortion. **Credits** - Researcher: Rachel Bailey - Production manager: Nicolette Howard - Camera: Terry Flaxton - Sound: Jonathan Enkel - Dubbing mixer: George Foulgham - Composers: Sue Herrod, Mieko Shimizu - Digital compositing: Timo Arnall, Marjut Rimminen - Editing: Tamara MacLachlan - Direction: Marjut Rimminen - Producer: Marilyn Milgrom - Production: An APT production for Channel 4 - Distribution: Channel Four International ### Unicef AIDS Red Ribbon 2001 · Digibeta · 1 minute 10 seconds Young adults on a tightrope, balancing their sexual activity with the threat of AIDS / HIV. Part of the UNICEF Anijam project, with fourteen animators each contributing a piece. **Credits** - Script: Christine Roche and Marjut Rimminen - Design: Christine Roche - Animation: Marjut Rimminen - Digital compositing: Timo Arnall - Editing: Tony Fish - Sound: Hackenbacker - Music: Connect 2 Music - Director: Marjut Rimminen - Producer: Mikael Wahlforss - Production: A Tricky Films Production for Epidem ZOT - Commissioned by: UNICEF