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 the woman’s experience of the present.

DVD available: British Animation Awards vol1.

8 min 23 secs, Digibeta, 16mm, 1996

Credits

Words: Harriett Gilbert

Father & Young Man: Kevin O’Donohoe

Mother & Young Woman: Sarah Strickett

Voices:  Anthony May, Melanie Hudson, Camilla Hunsley

Live-action, Design & Production: Daniel Simpson, Adam Cutts, Mark Sewell

Lighting: Layne Comarasawmy

Editing & Sound: Tony Fish

Sound & dubbing: Nigel Heath

Compositing: Timo Arnall

Directed and animated by Marjut Rimminen

Produced by Lee Stork

A Tricky Films production for Channel 4 Television

Distribution: Tricky Films

Awards

GRAND PRIX, 1997 Tampere International Short Film Festival.

THE GRAND ANIMATION PRIZE, 1997 Vila do Conde Short Film Festival.

FIRST PRIZE, 1997 Fantoche International Animation Festival.

JURY SPECIAL PRIZE, 1997 Krakov International Short Film Festival.

2nd PRIZE in a category of BEST COMPUTER ASSISTED ANIMATION, 1997  Los Angeles World Animation Celebration.

HONORARY DISTINCTION FOR BEST ANIMATION, 1997 Drama International Short Film Festival.

FINALIST, 1998 British Animation Awards

DIRECTORS’ CHOICE AWARD for the Most Innovative Animation Work, 1998 The Images Festival, Toronto

Reviews

A compelling work which succeeds  in subverting conventional definitions of story-telling, animation and cinema. Tampere International Short Film Festival jury report 5th March 1997.

The Jury has granted The Bronislaw Chromy Award for enhancing the art of animation with the new means of expression to ‘Many Happy Returns’, directed by Marjut Rimminen.  Krakow International Short Film Festival jury report June 1997

The director made a gallant attempt to show something multidimensional and truly elusive through skilfully employing unconventional means of artistic expression. Pjotr Dumala: President of the Jury in Cracow International Short Film Festival, interview in the Festival Gazette 3 June 1997.

The Grand Animation Prize for the most beautiful, but disturbing film ‘Many Happy Returns’. Jury citation, Vila do Conde International Short Film Festival 1997.

Marjut Rimminen’s short film has a similar disordered atmosphere with a visual disjointedness that aptly conveys traumatic memories. The shift from a woman in live action to a doll in animation enliven the world of the subconscious and conveys the fears of a child on the brink of disaster. This film illustrates the ‘state of mind’ film well as it conveys the world of the woman’s mind in such an abstract manner that the viewer has little sense of the details of reality but experiences an oppressive sense of atmosphere. The viewer sees the child like state of the woman’s pleas for safety which are seemingly mute and powerless. Cathy Johnstone, review in the Melbourne International Short Film festival July 1997.

The film is a moving narrative with an intelligent use of the evocative potential of modern cinema.  Jury citation, Fantoche International Animation Festival 1997.

However, no doubt about it, the best film of the competition won the first prize. ‘Many Happy Returns’ by Marjut Rimminen, a Channel Four production, is a combination of puppet and live action elements. The subject is rather delicate: child abuse (remember Marjut Rimminen’s former film ‘The Stain’). There is not only emotional perplexity, but also a lot of strong images. The film is wonderful and very suggestively composed. It is like a kick in the kidneys. It was worth the visit to Fantoche to watch this film. In two years we will attend Fantoche again, hoping to see an improved festival with less theory and more practice, and to discover yet another masterpiece. One masterpiece is even more than you can expect … Thomas Basgier, Animation World Network Magazine issue 2.7.1996

Many Happy Returns can be viewed or downloaded and search by the director or title.

The film is available as “British Animation Awards compilation DVD, volume 1″

The film is featured in Clare Kitson’s book “British animation: The Channel 4 factor”.

Triggered by an actual news item about suicidal octogenarian twins, THE STAIN is a dark, domestic thriller which uses a variety of animation styles to spin a claustrophobic web of incest and intrigue …

View.

DVD available. Desire & Sexuality: Animating the Unconscious Vol 1

11 mins, 16mm, 1991

Credits:

Narration: Chrisse Roberts

Words by: 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: Sarash Strickett, Sam Padget

Checking: Debra Thaine

Set Construction/Electrician: Dick Arnall

Silversmith: Pierre Marchand

Rostrum Camera: Heather Reader

Lighting & Camera: Cathy Greenhalgh

Editing & Sound:

Tony Fish, Peter Hearn @ Picturehead Productions

Dubbing Mixer: Ian Sewyn @ Studio Sound

Music: Dick Heckstall-Smith, Dave Moore, Giuseppe Verdi, Robert Schumann

Thanks to: Three Peach, Andy Daley, Michael Muller, Jim Ensom, Chris Opperman

Producer: Orly Yadin

A Smoothcloud Production for Channel Four Television

Distribution: Yadin Productions Productions Ltd

Awards:

SPECIAL JUTY PRIZE at the 1992 Hiroshima International Animation Festival

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE at the 1992 San Francisco International Film Frstival

WRITTEN ABOUT THE FILM:

“A deep frustration and hatred concealed beneath the surface of family life. Marjut Rimminen and Christine Roche wove this dark story out of a small enigmatic newspaper cutting. The narrative fills in an imagined back-story of incest, family violence and secrets, using a well-designed mixture of drawing and model animation. The Stain (1991) imbues a small-scale domestic narrative with tempestuous psychological forces. This sort of exposure of the dark underbelly of family life is a potent and distinctive feature of women’s animation, which developed in contrast to British animation’s prevailing culture of gags and action and its focus on technical innovation, and has influenced and enriched the medium as a whole. Christine Roche has had a career in education and illustration. Marjut Rimminen has gone on to develop as a film-maker. Her film Many Happy Returns (1997) takes the psycho-biographical family exposé further, making effective use of digitally-processed live-action and model animation.” Ruth Lingford/BFI screenonline http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/468262/index.html

“… an examination of incest and sex abuse within the nuclear family. In the Gothic nursery-rhyme atmosphere where keeping the house clean means shoving the dirty dishes into drawers already bulging with dirty dishes, the suffocation is acute. Bright toytown colours emphasise the shiny deception and jolly cover-ups of what Daddy likes to call a game … 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 & Sound.

“Rather more accessible as a movie is Marjut Rimminen and Christine Roche’s The Stain, 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.” Time Out.

“It’s rare to meet someone who’s seen THE STAIN who hasn’t been, quite simply, knocked out by it. … It is also difficult to describe. This is precisely because its use of animation to convey complex ideas through visual images and movement makes any synopsis somewhat misleading. It’s worth stressing the roller-coaster energy and tight construction, brilliant editing, unusual camera angles and exhilarating musical score which all drive the narrative along.” Women & Animation, ed. Jayne Pilling, British Film Institute.

“The aesthetics of tragedy. With SOME PROTECTION and I’M NOT A FEMINIST, BUT… Marjut Rimminen already demonstrated that she is not afraid to deal with serous subject matters. In her latest film THE STAIN she takes this even a few steps further, reconstucting absurd murder within family with hints of childabuse and perhaps even incest. Visually THE STAIN is also very complex and disturbing. Together with Christine Roche, Marjut Rimminen made a film not an easy to comprehend, but surely one you will never forget. An unusual theme apparently inspired them to combine for the first time many different techniques. Edwin Carels, Annecy 93 leQuotidien.

“Channel 4 in the commissioning and broadcasting of new independent work have prompted the emergence of highly talented female animators. The Leed’s Animation Collective (Out to Lunch, 1989), Joanna Quinn (Girl’s Night Out, 1986) Candy Guard (Fatty Issues, 1990), Erica Russell (Triangle, 1994), Marjut Rimminen (The Stain) 1991) and Ruth Lingford (Death and the Mother, 1996) have created a distinctly ‘feminine aesthetic’ which has challenged dominant orthodoxies not merely in British animation but in the form per se.

The fresh approach has been achieved, first, by using the craft-orientation and auteurist scope in animation to reconfigure the practice of filmmaking itself, and, second, by redefining aspects of representation, particularly in regard to the depiction of the body and issues about gender politics and social identity. FILM – The Critics Choice, (‘Art of the Iimpossible’ by Paul Wells, 150 masterpieces of world cinema selected and defiened by the experts.)

The Stain “ Myös ‘helmiä ‘ jäi palkitsematta. Marjut Rimmisen ja Christine Rochen Englannissa valmistama TAHRA on hallittuna animaationa toteutettu viiltävä psykodraama perhehelvetistä.”  Tarmo Poussu, Ilta Sanomat 9.3.1992.

“Parhaat tekijät ovat löytäneet tyyleilleen ja aiheilleen sopivat rakoset. Animaatio näyttää pystyvän tehokkaasti houkuttelemaan katsojia kertomalla asioista, jotka eivät joko helposti taivu näytellyn elokuvan aiheeksi tai joita ei sellaisina niellä. … STAIN’in tarina kertoo lapsen hylkäämisestä, insestistä ja muista olohuoneen virtahevoista. … Elokuvan rohkeudessa nostaa perheen ongelmat esiin on optimismin siemen. ” Petri Kemppisen raportti Annecyn elokuvajuhlilta, Helsingin Sanomat 8.7.1993.

The film is available as British Animation Awards compilation DVD “Desire & Sexuality/Animating the Unconscious”, Vol 1.  http://www.britishanimationawards.com/

The film has a mention in Clare Kitson’s book published by Parliament Hill Publishing

“British animation: The Channel 4 factor”