The Danish Poet. - Click this image to view the short film.
The narrator of The Danish Poet considers these questions as we follow Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet the famous writer, Sigrid Undset. As Kasper’s quest for inspiration unfolds, it appears that a spell of bad weather, an angry dog, slippery barn planks, a careless postman, hungry goats and other seemingly unrelated factors might play important roles in the big scheme of things after all.
This animated film by Torill Kove won an OSCAR for the Best Short Subjects Animation in 2007. It’s narrated by Liv Ullmann. Ullman, who herself was born in Tokyo, Japan, grew up in Trondheim in Norway, then lived in Canada during the World War, and now resides in Miami, Florida. The technique of this film is cell animation. It was drawn in pencil on paper, then scanned and coloured digitally. All of the backgrounds were made the same way except the skies, which were oil painted by Montreal artist Anne Ashton.
Click here or the image above to view the film. Enjoy!
It was an incident that led me to the site of Solana, a Danish-Puerto Rican journalist and activist in New York, and to this cute and yet thought-provoking story.
Dear Reader, what do you think? CAN we trace the chain of events that leads to our own birth? Is our existence just coincidence? Do little things matter?
“Perhaps we’re all originally from Denmark” … ? 
Further Resources
Thanks to the National Film Board of Canada (nfb) the film is made available on Youtube.
You can find techniques, multimedia downloads, interview with Torill Kove, and wallpapers at this nfb website.
There’s even a study guide for general viewers and and for younger viewers to the film.
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