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FACTS

Original Title

Millie and the Secret of the Crocodile

Type

3D Animated Feature

Genre

Adventure, comedy and drama

Country of Origin

Sweden

Language Spoken

Swedish (English version available)

Length

75-80 mins (TBD)

Director & Writer

Esben Toft Jacobsen

Producer
Petter Lindblad /

Snowcloud Films (SE)

Co-producers
Esben Toft Jacobsen / Vi Glæder os Preben (DK), Claus Toksvig Kjær and Elena Ø Alexa / Nørlum (DK), Marleen Slot / Viking Film (NL)

Release date

Autumn 2027

Local distributor

TriArt Film

I have always loved animated films that felt special. Not just something that tries to make the audience laugh, but something more.

Esben Toft Jacobsen (Writer and Director)

Story

Millie, an orphaned mouse, is being raised by a family of hedgehogs who love her dearly. However, she is afraid of everything, especially the crocodile who bit off her tail when she was a baby. Her closest friend is Morten, the son in the family. Morten falls in the river and is swept away, and being afraid, Millie fails to save him.

Millie embarks on a journey to find him, accompanied by a frog, Archimedes, who agrees to help her. As they venture down the river, Millie struggles to find the courage she needs to search for Morten. With the help of an ancient turtle, Shelley, who possesses a magical courage stone, Millie finds the strength to face her fears.d

The river leads them to the crocodile lake, where the crocodile has laid her eggs, and she demands that all animals along the river bring her food and fun toys to ensure her children’s happiness, or face imprisonment or worse. As the crocodile says; you are either fun or you are food.

Millie sneaks onto the crocodile’s island, but loses the courage stone. She is discovered and thrown into prison. Determined to save her friend Morten,

Millie enlists the help of Archimedes, who is now part of the crocodile army, to embark on a daring mission to break out of her cell and free the captive animals. she must use all her acquired skills to escape.

As they escape the island, the crocodile breaks down. She is afraid of being alone and is secretly afraid of water after being flushed in a toilet

as a baby and ending up on this island. If everyone leaves her, she will be all alone. Millie shows mercy to the broken crocodile, passing the courage stone to her and promising to help her. In the end, everyone lives in peace by the crocodile lake and the crocodile learns to swim.

THE team

Esben started out as a computer games director. He graduated from The Danish Film School as an animation director in 2006 with his successful animated short film HAVING A BROTHER. After that, he co-wrote and directed his two animated feature films THE GREAT BEAR (2011) and BEYOND BEYOND (2014). He is running his own company Vi Glæder os Preben since 2019.

He was part of creating the first Scandinavian Netflix Original THE RAIN with Christian Potalivo and Jannik Tai Mosholt, where he, apart from working as a creator, also worked as visual supervisor. He is one of the head teachers at the Danish Film School for the animation director program, shared responsibility with three other active animation directors from the Danish industry.

At the moment he is developing several projects with Petter Lindblad at Snowcloud Films (SE), and just finished an animated series, FLORA & LARS, with Lindblad, Christian Potalivo and Asta Stuhr at Tall & Small (DK), that premiered on the Danish public broadcaster DR November 2024.

Started working in film production 2005 at Zentropa, moving on to Copenhagen Bombay 2007-2014, before starting his own production company Snowcloud Films 2014. His focus from the start has been on content for children and youth, primarily animation.

Petter was selected as Producer on the Move in Cannes 2014, by the Swedish Film Institute, and was nominated for a Swedish Academy Award 2017 for the visual effects on his feature SIV SLEEPS ASTRAY and a Danish Academy Award 2012 for best children’s film, Esben Toft Jacobsen’s THE GREAT BEAR.

As a producer he has produced/co-produced 9 feature films, seven that were animated. He was delegate producer on five of them. In addition, he has produced animated series and specials for Cartoon Network, DR, TV2 Denmark, SVT and supervised animation work for Rovio Entertainment’s first season of ANGRY BIRDS TOONS.

He holds an MSc in Media Production and a Master in European Audiovisual Management from Media Business School in Spain. He is the Swedish representative on the board of the Creative Europe MEDIA-funded pan-European organisation Cartoon since 2013. He has co-organised six editions of an Animation Day with the Swedish Film Institute, working continuously to strengthen the Swedish animation industry, and its collaborations across the borders.

Characters

MILLIE

ARCHIMEDES

Millie is a young orphan mouse, equivalent to a human child aged 9 years. She is afraid of most things and her coping mechanism is pulling her ears down over her eyes. She learned that from growing up among hedgehogs, who just curl into a ball when scared. But Millie is more than that. She is also funny, curious and has a great sense of justice. Millie is missing her tail, that has been bitten off by the crocodile.

The small frog Archimedes is out looking for a present for the crocodile to pay his way into the crocodile army. Deep in his heart, all Archimedes really wants Is a friend. He is what you would call a pushover. He easily gets talked into things, and will budge under pressure. But he is more than that. His moral compass knows right from wrong even though he has convinced himself otherwise. And being with Millie makes his moral compass win in the end.

Morten

Morten is the son of the hedgehogs. He is Millie’s best friend and also her protector, until he falls in the water. Morten is curious and adventurous. He always feels safe because he can curl up in a protective ball. Morten loves everything about football.

Vera

The crocodile is the bully. She was flushed out through a toilet when she was small, and she will never let anyone have power like that over her again. She rules the lake and the streams that flow there, using the frogs as her henchmen. Once her eggs hatch, there will be more crocodiles and she will expand her kingdom. She does not eat animals, but thinks her kids will, when they hatch.

The theme of gaining courage, learning new things to evolve as a person is recognisable and relevant for all of us, young and old. And making this story for the younger children and their families to enjoy together has such a great potential, to be entertaining and giving insight to the audience about the world.

Petter Lindblad (Producer)

director's NOTE

I have always loved animated films that felt special. Not just something that tries to make the audience laugh, but something more. From early on, the Moomins, later everything from Ghibli and also the wonderful films from Cartoon Saloon made me feel this way. I liked them when I was small and I like them now. They can make me laugh, but they do so much more. They create universes that the audience likes to be in and characters that are highly relatable. I believe this story can be something special that the audience will love.

I clearly remember what it was like to gather courage for something I wanted to do as a kid. The effort it took and the inner struggle. As a father I have seen both my kids preparing to conquer a little part of the world. Diving into the deep end of the pool or walking into a new school. One of my children is afraid of everything, so this is a subject that is very close to my heart. As a film maker I have seen all my films with audiences many times. Some of them have been challenging and I have seen how the kids cope. How they overcome the dangerous scene in the film and how their hearts grow from that. This film is not a challenging film, but a film about overcoming challenges. I want everyone to root for Millie and cheer when she succeeds. And I want them to laugh.

THEMES

Courage and friendship. “How do you get ready to do something that you don’t dare?” Some things can be solved with kindness and in other cases you have to say stop and draw a line in the sand.

MOOD AND TONE

It will feel like an adventure. It will be funny, charming and exciting. The goal is to create a universe that feels good to be in, with characters that you like and cheer for. And can give you a lot of laughs along the way.

VISUAL CREATION

As a director/writer working in animation, the visual part of creation is important, and one way that I work is to make a lot of “simple” sketches of scenes as part of writing. Figuring out emotion, geography, scale and acting as visuals in parallel to writing, makes the process stronger and easier for others to come onboard and understand the vision for the story and project. On the following page are some of the sketches Esben has made during the development.

"Real friendship takes courage"

Producer's NOTE

This is the third feature film I produce together with Esben. Our previous two films brought us to the Berlin Film Festival, the main competition in Annecy and many more, winning awards and selling across the globe. Following those successes, and Esben and my shared love of creating wonderful stories for children using animation, the intent with this film is to create an original story for younger children that has a universal appeal, is full of humor and adventure, and that will reach even larger audiences.

The theme of gaining courage, learning new things to evolve as a person is recognisable and relevant for all of us, young and old. And making this story for the younger children and their families to enjoy together has such a great potential, to be entertaining and giving insight to the audience about the world.

The Nordic region has common cultural history and stories, and being small countries we find ourselves collaborating again and again. There are talented artists in all five of the Nordic countries, and I was “brought up” in the Danish animation industry from 2005-2014, when I started my own production company in Stockholm. From the start I worked with many nationalities, finding the best partners and artists for projects, and no other director I have met or worked with have been so talented and fun to work with as Esben Toft Jacobsen. I am so happy that we have developed this film since 2018 and now are getting ready for production and a release in 2027.

Animation development and production is slow and hard work, even more than live action productions as I see it. Not only do we have the challenge of coming up with a strong and relatable story and finding the right team, we need to develop the look and style of the characters and the universe of the film so others can see the same vision as we. This makes it tougher to produce animation, and good partners, and long times are needed.

With our proven track record, with two feature animation films (both competed in Berlinale Generation, and was screened at the film festival in Annecy, one in the main competition) and most recently a 26×7 min animation series for DR, SVT, NRK, YLE and RUV, we know that we are a good team. Each on our own have created and worked with many other projects, features and series, and brought even more talented people onboard, co-producers like Marleen Slot/Viking Film (NL) and Claus Toksvig Kjær and Elena Ø Alexa/Nørlum Entertainment (DK) that I’ve produced with before, and artists, both creative and technical, that will help me ensure that this production is realistic and possible to produce within our budget and schedule, and become a new great classic animation for the children in Sweden, the Nordics and the rest of the world.

FACTS

I have always loved animated films that felt special. Not just something that tries to make the audience laugh, but something more.

Esben Toft Jacobsen (Writer and Director)

Story

THE team

Esben toft jacobsen

petter lindblad

ANIMATIC TEST

Characters

MILLIE

ARCHIMEDES

Morten

Vera

Petter Lindblad (Producer)

director's NOTE

"Real friendship takes courage"

Producer's NOTE

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