W o r k i n p r og r ess
MINI-ZLATAN Some films have all the aces up their sleeve: an experienced director like Christian Lo, a team of talented scriptwriters, a book by Pija Lindenbaum, an eccentric art department and a producer like Petter Lindblad who knows how to pitch convincingly. After the project was pitched at the Cinekid Industry Days two years ago, the team now returned for a presentation of MINI-ZLATAN, a film in its last stage of post-production. 8 year old Ella will spend a week with Tommy, her favourite uncle and best friend, actually… her only friend. When Ella gets a fortune cookie that says “Friends are the flowers in the garden of life” she confesses to Tommy: “I only have one flower in my garden, and that is you!” In comes Steve, Tommy’s new boyfriend who unexpectedly came over from the Netherlands and is about to ruin all the quality time that Ella had planned. The rest of the week is all about trying to get rid of Steve. Together with Otto, a boy in her class, Ella comes up with all sorts of crazy plans to chase away the intruder but
nothing goes according to plan. The more she tries, the more Tommy realises that Steve is the right man for him. He is even planning to propose to him, and Ella and Tommy have their first quarrel ever! Then one day, Steve is gone. Ella’s plan succeeded, but left Tommy completely heartbroken. She realises this is all her fault, and sets off on a new mission: to bring Steve back, in time for the great proposal. Then Ella realises she has learned a lot about the importance of friends. They truly are the flowers in the garden of life! Where the story comes from Petter Lindblad: In 2016 we premiered at the Berlinale with SIV SLEEPS ASTRAY, a live action adaptation of a book for young children by Pija Lindenbaum. Afterwards we wanted to continue working with her. We went through the almost 30 titles in Pija’s biography, looking for the one with the most potential. That was MINI-ZLATAN, targeting the younger audience but with a wider appeal to grown-ups and the potential of a true
family film. As a bonus, it had this LGBTQ theme in the background, which is never emphasised but simply there. The book has no more than 20 pages, with little text and plenty of illustrations. Sara Sjöö (co-producer & script author): We needed to discover the story that was hidden in the pictures. I truly loved the characters and enjoyed further developing them. There were only a few – Ella, Tommy and Steve – so we added some extra characters to the script. Who is in the team With Petter Lindblad (Snowcloud) and Sara Sjöö as producers, among the
partners are Filmbin (Norway), Viking Films (the Netherlands), Scandinavian Film Distribution, SVT, Creative Europe Media, the Swedish and Norwegian Film Institutes and the Nordic Film Fund. Lindblad: A lot of children’s films were recently produced in Sweden, the competition in finding production support was tough. Finally we could greenlight the project with a € 1.9 million budget. Three different writers were on the script, with Ella Lemhagen launching the first draft, Janne Vierth working on a second version, and then Sara Sjöö taking a new grip on the pro-
12 | Journal 4 | 2021
