# Marjut Rimminen Animation. London and Helsinki. > Marjut Rimminen, Finnish-born animator and director based in London. Short films, commercials and trailers from 1972 onwards. Awards include the Tampere Grand Prix and Special Jury Prizes at Hiroshima and San Francisco. This is the Markdown rendering of [https://marjutrimminen.com/](https://marjutrimminen.com/), generated from the page itself. It carries the same words in the same order, with every image reduced to its description. Short summary for machines: [https://marjutrimminen.com/llms.txt](https://marjutrimminen.com/llms.txt). ## Short films ### 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](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/many-happy-returns/Many-Happy-Returns-02.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](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/many-happy-returns/Many-Happy-Returns-03.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-Stain05.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-Stain07.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-1_01.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-4-31.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-4-50.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/sp-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 outside the prison](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/some-protection/sp-fairground.jpg) ![Still from Some Protection, HMP gates](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/some-protection/sp-hmp-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/UT-02.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/UT-03.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/UT-08.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/UT-01.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/feminist-reading.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 iankaikkisuuteen 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 ## Selected commercials *Commercials, 1972–2001* Marjut has directed and animated television commercials in Finland and the UK since 1972, over thirty years of work across more than forty productions. She is widely recognised as the most internationally awarded Finnish animator working in advertising. ### Vivante 1972 · 30 seconds Bathroom cosmetics by Berner. Marjut's first commercial. ![Vivante still, a woman and a man sharing a bubble bath](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/vivante/vivante-couple-bath.jpg) A 30-second ode to a bubble bath. Banned by Finnish television for the "merry exposure of a girl sharing her bath with a man". Won Best Commercial at Zagreb 1972, beating Preston Blair and Geoff Dunbar. The award led directly to the move to London. Marjut had a Kulttuurirahasto grant to study animation abroad, but her career as an art director in Helsinki had taken off so fast she could never get away. The summer of 1970 finally got her to the Mamaia film festival in Romania, where she sat through morning-to-late-night animation screenings and met the British animation producer Dick Arnall. > I got very inspired, sat in the festival from morning screenings till late shows, and got a high-dose injection of animation straight to my brain. I could see what makes animation special, and also what were the worn-out and conventional approaches. I also met Dick, the love of my life, in the festival, and the Vivante commercial was a result of these exciting experiences. > > — Marjut Rimminen, on Mamaia 1970 A few months later, in the Kauppatori cafe in Helsinki, Marjut bumped into Lemmikki Nenonen, a commercials director who had been asked to make a TV spot for Berner's Vivante bath cosmetics but couldn't find an idea. > I suggested animation, and having a man and a woman sharing a bath together (something that Dick and I indulged in). I promised to draw some sketches. > > — Marjut Rimminen ![Vivante still, woman in the bath holding a Vivante tube](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/vivante/vivante-bath-tube.jpg) Berner liked the sketches and approved three months of production time. The first line test was terrible: the bath tub had been redrawn on every cel, and the picture juddered as if floating in a heavy storm. That is how Marjut learned to put things on layers. When the commercial was finished, Mainos TV banned it for being too risque. The Lintas / Womena agency had faith in the project and entered it into Klaffikilpailu, Finland's annual best-commercials competition, where Vivante won an award. The following spring she sent it to Zagreb, where it took the Grand Prix for best commercial, beating spots by Preston Blair and Geoff Dunbar. After that Mainos TV changed its mind and put it on air. > Even a sponsor less flexible than the alphabet can still produce delicate pleasures, as the prizewinner for the best commercial proved. Marjut Rimminen's Vivante, a 30-second ode to a bubble bath, has been banned by Finnish television for its merry exposure of a girl sharing her bath with a man. Instead it now delights cinema audiences, and wins festival prizes. > > — Derek Hill, The Times, on Zagreb 1972 ![Vivante still, woman in the bath with three product tubes lined up alongside](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/vivante/vivante-tubes-three.jpg) The year after Zagreb, at Annecy 1973, Lee Mishkin invited Marjut to come and work at Halas & Batchelor in London. A few months later, at Cannes, Dereck Younghusband, also from Halas & Batchelor, stood in the festival cafe waving a telegram from his boss and called out: "Are there any Finns around, and does anybody know Marjut Rimminen? She is invited to work in London." Marjut moved to London in autumn 1974 and has been there ever since. ![Vivante still, shower scene with three Vivante product tubes](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/vivante/vivante-shower-products.jpg) - 🥇 **Best Animated Commercial**, 1972 [Zagreb World Animation Festival](https://www.animafest.hr/en) - 🥈 **Hopeaklaffi**, 1972, Finland's silver award for advertising film **Credits** - Direction, design, animation: Marjut Rimminen - Client: Berner - Agency: Lintas / Womena Advertising *More commercials* - **Enstex** 1980, Reima / Ervaco. 🥈 Hopeaklaffi 1980. - **White Cap** 1983, Marli. 🥈 Hopeaklaffi 1983 · 🏅 Personal Achievement, Finnish Advertising Film Competition 1983 · Finalist, New York Film and TV Festival 1984. - **Mehukatti**, Marli / Tehomainos. 🥈 Hopeaklaffi. - **UPO Tehokarhut**, UPO / Creator. 🥉 Honourable Mention, Vuoden Huiput. - **Nokian NRV, Kastemato**, Nokia / PHS. 🥇 Best Seconds of the Month · 🥇 Epica Awards Gold Medal. - **Take and Bake Pizza**, HK / Publicis-Törmä. - **Hovi, peilit**, Valio / SEK and Grey. - **Sunnuntai, Pullapoika**, Raisio / Publicis. - **Pomppis, leipuri**, Kotileipomot / Särkkä. - **La Gala, tankarunot**, Valio / Creator-Grey. - **Hui Kauhistus**, Valio / PHS, design by Mauri Kunnas. - **Madame**, A-lehdet / Creator-Grey. - **Teitten Ritari**, Liikenneturva / Vega, design by Christine Roche. - **Visa Card**, Luottokunta / Turkama. - **Postipankki, Menuetti**, Postipankki. - **Postipankki, Laskuja, laskuja**, Postipankki / Creator. - **Joke**, Valio / Creator-Gray. - **Picnic**, Creator. - **Coldrex**, Whintrop / Goodwill. - **Bubbis**, McCann-Erickson. - **Marianne**, Chymos. - **Fennia, kotipiirivakuutus**, Fennia. - **Serto**, Serto / Finnad. - **Kellogg, bran cereals**, Kellogg Company / Taucher. - **Tetra Pak**, Tetra Pak / Wunderman Cato Johnson. - **Maps (Kartat)**, Maamittaushallitus / Kauppamainos. - **UPO weather, laundry, allergy spots**, UPO / Creator. - **Kulinaari**, Paulig / SEK and Gray. - **OL detergents**, Konsepti. - **Vitaplus**, Indal / Womena. - **Yaxa**. - **SIPS, Sleeping Beauty / Little Red Riding Hood**, Tehomainos. - **Hermesetas**, Seitsenmainos. - **Wolz**. - **Hi-Invite**. - **Formia**. - **Kunnox**. - **Valintatalo, Kotkan Ruusu / Hyvä tyttö**, Valintatalo. - **13–19, Kun iho huutaa apua**, Womena. > Marjut Rimminen has been making TV commercials for over thirty years, longer than many in the industry have been alive. She is the most internationally recognised Finnish animator working in advertising. > > — Markkinointi and Mainonta, November 2000 > Making commercials is an excellent way to keep bread on the table, develop your craft, and get to try ever-new techniques. > > — Marjut Rimminen, Ilta Sanomat, 10 March 1997 ## Selected trailers and idents *Trailers and idents* - **100 Years of Cinema**, Finnish Film Foundation. Music by Andy Cowton. - **Tampere Film Festival**, Tampere International Short Film Festival. - **Cinenova**, [Cinenova Film Distributors](http://www.cinenova.org/artist/marjut-rimminen/). Music by Andy Cowton. - **Absolut**, Troon Ltd. - **Tricky Films**, own studio ident. ## Hellä Mietonen *Packaging* 1972 · Shampoo bottle · Womena Advertising, Helsinki In the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. ![Three white Hellä Mietonen shampoo bottles in a row, beaded with water, each with a fluted spherical cap](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/hella-mietonen/hella-mietonen-shampoo-bottle-packaging-three.jpg) A shampoo bottle shaped like a human figure, released in Finland in 1972 and re-released in 2017. Marjut designed the packaging while working at the advertising agency Womena in Helsinki, in the same year as her first commercial. It was considered sculptural enough that the bottle was acquired for the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Hellä Mietonen reads in Finnish like a person's name, Hellä for the first name and Mietonen for the surname, while the two words also mean gentle and mild. The product was given a body to match, with a fluted cap sitting on top of it like a head. Hellä Mietonen, puhdasta, mietoa shampoota, joka pesee hiuksenne hellästi vaahdoten. Clean, mild shampoo that washes your hair gently in lather. ![The Hellä Mietonen bottle in three views on a dark ground: the front with its label, the back with no graphics, and looking down onto the ribbed cap](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/hella-mietonen/hella-mietonen-shampoo-bottle-packaging-front-back-top.jpg) Turned around, with the graphics out of sight, the form is a body, sensual and feminine, soft the whole way round with no hard edge on it. It holds and squeezes beautifully in the hand. Marjut designed the bottle and worked on the project with Kirsti Paakkanen, who owned Womena and led the brand and its advertising, and who went on to buy and revive Marimekko in the 1990s. The bottle is also held by the [Helsinki City Museum](https://www.finna.fi/Record/hkm.HKMS000005:km0000ll68). ## Selected exhibitions *Exhibitions* ### The Animation Show April 1981 · Neal Street Gallery, London Group exhibition ![Marjut Rimminen at the Neal Street Gallery in 1981, with framed Vivante and Kellogg artwork on the wall behind her](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/exhibitions/neal-street-1981.jpg) Original artwork from Marjut's Vivante and Kellogg commercials was shown in this group exhibition at the Neal Street Gallery in Covent Garden. ![Two original commercial artworks shown in the exhibition: Vivante figures in bathtubs with a tube of Wreath toothpaste](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/exhibitions/neal-street-1981-artwork.jpg) ### Film & Strip 2 November 1985 · Kettle's Yard Gallery, Cambridge Group exhibition, part of the Cambridge Animation Festival ![Marjut Rimminen and Christine Roche at the opening of Film & Strip, Kettle's Yard, with drawings hung in a long horizontal grid behind them](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/exhibitions/kettles-yard-1985.jpg) A group exhibition, [Film & Strip](http://ukanimation.blogspot.com/2010/06/), at Kettle's Yard Gallery as part of the Cambridge Animation Festival in November 1985. It showed original artwork from I'm not a Feminist, but… and later toured around Britain. ![A selection of drawings shown in Film & Strip, a nude figure with apple, a woman with a market basket, a laughing woman in an armchair](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/exhibitions/kettles-yard-1985-artwork.jpg) ## Marjut Rimminen *About* ![Marjut Rimminen at her desk in her London studio, surrounded by archive shelves and a pinboard of clippings](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/portrait-studio-bw.jpg) Finnish animator and director, based in London since the early 1970s. Studied graphic design at the Helsinki College of Applied Arts, graduating in 1968. Started making animated television commercials, one of which was named Best Commercial at the 1972 Animafest Zagreb. The following year she joined Halas and Batchelor Animation in the United Kingdom, and has lived and worked in London ever since. She works in illustration, drawn cel, puppet, clay and pixilated animation, 3D and CGI, vector, and digital compositing, often combining several in a single sequence. The Stain and Many Happy Returns are the most layered. Her short films and commercials have screened at festivals around the world, and she has sat on numerous juries. She teaches animation direction at the National Film and Television School in London and Aalto University in Helsinki, and has taught at the Royal College of Art and the Institute of Art and Design in Surrey. She still gives master classes and workshops internationally. ![Marjut Rimminen in round glasses and a patterned scarf, seated by the French doors at dusk](https://marjutrimminen.com/images/marjut-portrait.jpg) Retrospectives of her work have been held at the [Tampere Film Festival](https://tamperefilmfestival.fi/en/) and [Stuttgart Trickfilm Festival](https://www.itfs.de/en/) (both 1998), [Animerte Dager](https://animationfestival.no/) in Norway (1999), and [Tricky Women](https://www.trickywomen.at/) in Vienna (2008). She has served on international festival juries, often alongside a retrospective of her films: - **[Holland International Animation Festival](https://haff.nl/en/)** 2000, international jury, Utrecht - **[Krakow International Short Film Festival](https://www.krakowfilmfestival.pl/en/)** 2004, international jury - **[Tehran International Animation Festival](https://www.awn.com/news/tehran-intl-animation-festival-winners-announced)** 2005, international jury - **[Hiroshima International Animation Festival](https://hiroanim.org/2008/en/e03compe/3-06_en.html)** 2008, international jury - **[Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_International_Cartoon_and_Animation_Festival)** 2010, jury for commissioned films - **[Etiuda & Anima](https://etiudaandanima.pl/category/archiwum/2012/)** 2012, animation jury, Krakow Her husband, British animation producer [Dick Arnall](https://dickarnall.com) (1944–2007), worked with her on many of the films through his company [Finetake](https://finetake.com). Their son [Timo Arnall](https://elasticspace.com) was the VFX supervisor on most of their later work. Her commercial work has its own home at [Tricky Films](https://trickyfilms.com). Video: [Marjut's Biography on Vimeo](https://player.vimeo.com/video/1114216957?dnt=1&byline=0&portrait=0&title=0) Marjut's Biography, a short documentary made by Jason Elliot at the National Film and Television School. > Marjut Rimminen is one of the most complex protagonists in the European animated film world. This is reflected in both the multitude of animation techniques and in particular the complexity of her topics. Her films often have a documentary core, but it is on the whole difficult to categorize them. After a closer inspection of the films, one notices an effective narrative technique, and rather unconventional fact, that despite the films undoubtedly are animated, they seem strangely 'real'. > > — Ulrich Wegenast, Trickfilm Festival Stuttgart, April 1998 > Channel 4 in the commissioning and broadcasting of new independent work have prompted the emergence of highly talented female animators … The Leeds Animation Collective, Joanna Quinn, Candy Guard, Erica Russell, Marjut Rimminen and Ruth Lingford have created a distinctly 'feminine aesthetic' which has challenged dominant orthodoxies not merely in British animation but in the form per se. > > — Paul Wells, Art of the Impossible, in Film: The Critics' Choice, 2002 > Even my first film was a combination of separate pieces. I don't know why I like this so much, just as I like to collect crappy junk and bits and bobs and turn them into something new. I seem not to want to sustain a long continuity. I like fragments. That's just something in the nature of my psyche. > > — Marjut Rimminen, Edwin Carels interview, Annecy 1993 > I don't believe in happy endings, so I can't use them. I find them mostly false. Perhaps I haven't matured enough to see how I could change the course of these tragedies, so for the moment, tragedy is apparently just the medium I am happy with. > > — Marjut Rimminen, Edwin Carels interview, Annecy 1993 > The child in me will always remain Finnish. > > — Marjut Rimminen, Kotiliesi, 4 October 1996 ## Get in touch *Contact* For festival and screening enquiries, teaching, masterclasses, or correspondence: [marjut.rimminen@gmail.com](mailto:marjut.rimminen@gmail.com) [Tricky Films](https://trickyfilms.com) · [Finetake](https://finetake.com) · [animate!](https://animate.finetake.com) · [Dick Arnall](https://dickarnall.com) · [Timo Arnall](https://elasticspace.com) © Marjut Rimminen 2026