# Many Happy Returns > The disjointed debris of our childhood state still lurking within our adult consciousness act as a painful, disruptive force. This is the Markdown rendering of [https://marjutrimminen.com/films/many-happy-returns/](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/many-happy-returns/), 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/many-happy-returns/](https://marjutrimminen.com/fi/lyhytelokuvat/many-happy-returns/). # Many Happy Returns 1996 · Short film · 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. Papier-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. > Many Happy Returns is very much how I visualise the world in my head. > > – Marjut Rimminen, Marjut's Biography, a film by Jason Elliot, 2024 > 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. > > – Slava Greenberg, Frames Cinema Journal, 2014 > 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 > Computers came into my life, and all of a sudden I realised this is the way I can see the world. > > – Marjut Rimminen, Marjut's Biography, a film by Jason Elliot, 2024 > When my editor Tony Fish died, my big cry of sorrow was to say to him thank you, thank you, thank you. As an animator you spend so much time with your material that you become deaf and blind to what is there. He was able to give what he called the second direction. He cut two minutes out of Many Happy Returns. He just said, darling, it does not work. And because he is such a wonderful friend and collaborator, you accept it. The film was much better without those two minutes. But can you imagine? Two minutes is months of work, chucked out. > > – Marjut Rimminen, Marjut's Biography, a film by Jason Elliot, 2024 Tony Fish (1943–2023) cut [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/), Many Happy Returns, [the Unicef film](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/unicef-aids-red-ribbon/) and [Learned by Heart](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/learned-by-heart/). He also edited Bob Godfrey's Great and Suzie Templeton's Peter and the Wolf, both of which won the Academy Award for best animated short. ![A puppet girl in a red flowered dress presses against a window, a walking figure reflected in the glass.](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/many-happy-returns/many-happy-returns-1996-girl-behind-window-glass-reflection.jpg) - 🏆 **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 - **Diploma**, 1997 [KROK International Festival of Animated Films](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/fourth-inernational-festival-animated-films), films of 5 to 10 minutes - **Cartoon d'Or nominee**, 1998 [Anima, Brussels](https://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.1/3.1pages/3.1news.html), one of four nominees 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 ## Screenings and broadcasts - Screened at the [Melbourne International Film Festival](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21422/many-happy-returns) - **[Janela da Alma](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janela_da_Alma)** 2001, a Brazilian feature documentary on seeing by João Jardim and Walter Carvalho, with nineteen interviewees including José Saramago, Wim Wenders, Agnès Varda and Oliver Sacks; Marjut talks about her squint and Many Happy Returns ## Retrospectives - **[Anima, Brussels Cartoon and Animated Film Festival](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/most-wonderful-voyage-folioscope)** 17 to 28 February 1998, retrospective homage at the 17th festival, presented by Marjut from the [Tetra Pak](https://marjutrimminen.com/commercials/tetra-pak/) commercials through [The Frog King](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-frog-king/) and [Urpo ja Turpo](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/urpo-and-turpo/) to [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/) and Many Happy Returns - **[Secret Cinema](https://www.markwebber.org.uk/2007/03/learned-by-heart.html)** 13 March 2007, Curzon Soho, London: [Learned by Heart](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/learned-by-heart/), Many Happy Returns and [Some Protection](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/some-protection/), followed by a conversation with Gareth Evans; organised by animate! and the Finnish Institute - **[Tricky Women](https://www.trickywomen.at/)** 2008, personale at Topkino, Vienna: [Vivante](https://marjutrimminen.com/commercials/vivante/), [Absolut Marjut Rimminen](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/absolut-marjut-rimminen/), [Unicef AIDS Red Ribbon](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/unicef-aids-red-ribbon/), [Some Protection](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/some-protection/), [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/), Many Happy Returns and [Learned by Heart](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/learned-by-heart/) ## Writing about the work - **Marjut Rimminen**: Giannalberto Bendazzi, [Animation: A World History, Volume III: Contemporary Times](https://books.google.com/books?id=BpvhCgAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PT86) 2016, CRC Press: a biographical paragraph in the chapter on Great Britain (pages 71 to 72), from the 1968 graduation and [Vivante](https://marjutrimminen.com/commercials/vivante/)'s Zagreb award through Halas and Batchelor, the commercials for Finland, [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/), [Urpo & Turpo](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/urpo-and-turpo/), Many Happy Returns, [Mixed Feelings](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/mixed-feelings/) and [Red Ribbon](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/unicef-aids-red-ribbon/) to [Learned by Heart](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/learned-by-heart/), with a still from it; and a passage in the Finland chapter ([page 135](https://books.google.com/books?id=BpvhCgAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PT221)): Learned by Heart "x-rays the country's history through the eyes of a child" - **[Some Protection](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/some-protection/), [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/), Many Happy Returns, [Mixed Feelings](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/mixed-feelings/)**: Clare Kitson, [British Animation: The Channel 4 Factor](https://archive.org/details/britishanimation0000kits) 2008, Parliament Hill Books, the history of the channel's animation commissioning: of the Blind Justice series, "the final film, Some Protection by Marjut Rimminen, would attract the most accolades"; The Stain was "brought to the channel by two of the Blind Justice team"; Mixed Feelings and the credits of Many Happy Returns; a photograph of Marjut at Fantoche with its Grand Prix (page 165) - **Many Happy Returns**: Slava Greenberg, [More Than Meets the Eye: The Haptic Spectatorship Experience of Short Avant-Garde Animation about Vision Disabilities](https://framescinemajournal.com/article/more-than-meets-the-eye-the-haptic-spectatorship-experience-of-short-avant-garde-animation-about-vision-disabilities/) 2014, Frames Cinema Journal 5: the film read as the trauma of invisibility, one of three films on vision disabilities, quoting Marjut on her strabismus - **Many Happy Returns**: Thomas Basgier, [Fantoche: Switzerland's Experiment](https://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.7/2.7pages/2.7basgierfantoche.html) October 1997, Animation World Magazine: the film as the first prize winner and the best of the competition; and Valérie Hamon-Rivoallon, [The Most Wonderful Voyage in Folioscope](https://www.awn.com/animationworld/most-wonderful-voyage-folioscope) (April 1998) on the Brussels retrospective, with the same issue's [news pages](https://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.1/3.1pages/3.1news.html) on Stuttgart and the Cartoon d'Or nomination - [The Stain](https://marjutrimminen.com/films/the-stain/) ## Get in touch For festival and screening enquiries, teaching, masterclasses, or correspondence: [marjut.rimminen@gmail.com](mailto:marjut.rimminen@gmail.com)