WeAnimate 2026-01-20 | wam#0070

This month, the film adaptation of Jakob Martin Strid’s beloved When Mumbo Jumbo Grew Giant finally hits Danish screens. This eagerly anticipated animated film is a loving homage to the book, with a beautiful visual style and a charming story that families will adore. Co-directed by Karsten Killerich and Stine Buhl, we recently interviewed Stine for a behind-the-scenes peek at A. Film and the process of creating this movie.

A. Film has been producing animation in Denmark since 1988, and is responsible for many of the country’s most successful films and shows. Simply maintaining an animation studio for 37 years is a huge accomplishment, but A. Film has also created a company culture where passion for animation and respect for animators remains a driving force, even after all this time. As we get to know the artists and creators behind this film, we also have an opportunity to explore how deeply the team at A. Film love their work, love animation, and loved creating this film.

When Mumbo Jumbo Grew Giant was co-directed by A. Film’s Stine Buhl, a veteran animator with a new role as creative director. Stine is truly an animator’s animator, with the experience and approach of an artisan. Her dedication to the craft reflects the philosophy of A. Film, while her experience in international feature film animation gives new insights. We recently spoke with Stine to learn more about her, the studio, and how this film was made.

WA: Tell us a bit about your background

Stine: As a kid, like all animators, I drew all the time. I drew cartoons, and I snuck my older brother’s comics out of his room to read them. Asterix, The Smurfs, Franquain, Morris and Hergé… And of course I loved Donald Duck and all the Disney films.

So I really wanted to work as an animator, but even though I grew up in a very creative environment, animation wasn’t really an option. I didn’t know anyone who worked in the industry, or how to begin, so I started my education by studying architecture. But then I went to visit a friend who attended The Animation Workshop, and I was blown away. This was about 1998, and the school was very different then. It was hard to get funded, because it wasn’t yet part of the formal education system. But I grew up on a very small island in the south of Denmark where everybody knows everybody, and you could just walk into the bank and ask to borrow the money for school. And they loaned it to me: they actually thought I could make a living in animation! I mean, I thought so too, but to me that was a kind of confirmation of my aspirations.

While I was studying at TAW, during my summer break, A. Film selected five of us to go work as interns on the film Help I’m a Fish! It was a co-production with a German film studio, so I went to Munich to work on it. I really liked what they did there, and I learned so much as a clean up artist. That film had a much higher budget than we see today, so I think that it still stands out, not just in Danish animation, but in European animation. It had very high standards.

I continued freelancing for A. Film during my second year at school, and then I got my first job there as a cleanup assistant on an Adam Sandler film called Eight Crazy Nights. Back then you could not be an animator straight out of school, especially if you wanted to do feature films. All the small jobs I got in Denmark were in TV, and I really wanted to do feature animation. So I moved back to Munich, where I worked on a short film called The Shark and the Piano, and then I moved to Milan. I lived there for about a year and a half, making 2D animation, on paper. I also lived in LA for three years, and basically just spent several years traveling and working on films. But although I love traveling, I enjoyed it whenever I could get a job back home.

That was just at the time when production started shifting to CG instead of 2D. I was resistant, and I didn’t want to do it.

I still feel like you can get a real connection with the work when you’re animating on paper. It’s a unique feeling, almost as if the characters are already alive, and you are just helping them step out of the paper. There’s a direct emotional connection with the drawing. It is a pretty magical process.

 

– Stine Buhl

But I knew I ultimately wanted to live in Denmark, and that meant working in CG. So I took some classes from the Gnomon Workshop in LA, and, just as I got comfortable with it, Sun Creature showed up. The last 2D film I worked on was Flee.

A. Film has been part of my life the whole time, and I’ve gone back and forth with them for my whole career. I had worked my way up to supervisor roles, and then became an animation director on a few features. So when they offered me a job as a creative director, I said yes. It felt very natural to step into the role here.

You meet the same people over and over, as you travel around the world as an animator. I really miss it sometimes. The good news is, since we’re still working on various international collaborations, there is still traveling going on. But I love Copenhagen, and I feel very happy to be able to stay here and work with something that I really enjoy doing.

 

– Stine Buhl

WA: How do you feel about the transition from being an animator to being a director?

Stine: When you’re sitting as an animator with a storyboard, you can always complain about how the story isn’t working and how you would do things differently… Well, now I have my shot. [laughs]

Directing a film is very similar to what I’ve done before, although there are some extra responsibilities. But I have been creating and directing my personal projects for years, and I have worked in all those departments before, because that’s what you do if you want to survive as an animator. I think I’m lucky that I have the professional background that I have, because I don’t think there’s any department that I haven’t been a part of. I know what they are all doing, I know what I can ask of them. It’s different as a director, of course, because you need to be on top of the whole project, and less detail oriented.

When I joined Mumbo Jumbo, the script was already there. I could work alongside Karsten, and I’ve known him since my very first internship on Help I’m a Fish!, so it’s a safe environment for me to try this new role. It’s actually been very fun.

At A. Film we have such a small team, and the structure is so flat. We don’t have a setup like in the US, where you have a Head of Animation, then an Animation Supervisor, then the Animation Lead and so on… here we are wearing a lot of hats. I feel like my whole career I have been trying on all the hats, and now I have merged together into one big hat. And yes, Mumbo Jumbo is my first film as a director, but we have quite a few in development here that I’ve been involved with in different ways, and I really enjoy being part of the development process.

A Film is a very solid machine: it’s gone on for years and the movies keep coming out and it’s such a steady place, even though the industry as a whole does not feel like a safe place right now. I think I’ve done enough projects in enough places that I can offer a new perspective. There is a lot of insecurity in the industry, so I feel lucky that I get to work with this stability, while making improvements in a sustainable way.

 

– Stine Buhl

I think the philosophy here at A. Film is that we are doing as we’ve always done, but with every project we try to grow a little bit. I like that. It’s similar to my own approach in my career. So we have a few projects in development, and I have several personal projects in the works, and we’ll see what happens next.

WA: What appeals to you about Mumbo Jumbo?

Stine: I worked as an animator on The Giant Pear, which was also based on one of Strid’s books. I’ve always loved his work, so this project definitely spoke to me. I love the sense of humor in this story. It’s very particular, very Danish, without being crude or rude, like Danish humor can be. I mean, I love The Checkered Ninja series and that sense of humor, but this is different. Because it’s aimed at younger children, it has a more whimsical, playful tone.

The aesthetics of the book also spoke to me. It’s gorgeous, and Strid likes unusual things. For example, there’s a sequence where they stop at a gas station. And a gas station might be considered ugly, something you would never see in a kids movie, but there’s really such a charm to it. He looks at it a bit like a kid would, noticing things that adults take for granted, and in his illustrations it just stands out. It’s really special.

Then there’s another character I really like. I read about her as a kid without knowing who she really was. She’s a Russian witch called Baba Yaga, and she has a house on chicken legs. She is scary; she was very scary in my books as a kid. But here you learn that she’s just a weird hermit. She wants to be left alone, but she’s also really loving and kind, once you get to know her.

So the movie has all these elements that I loved, and I think we’ve really captured the spirit and the look of the book. It’s also a road movie, which I think is such a wonderful thing for kids. It’s not about rushing from one place to the next; it’s about taking in the landscape, feeling the journey unfold. Road movies, to me, are about mood and emotion, that quiet feeling of being carried forward, where a trip becomes almost meditative

We also got to work with Halfdan E as the composer, and he wrote some really fun songs, so all of that together was a very good fit for me. It is a movie that, if Karsten hadn’t done it already, and I was in a position to go to DFI to make this film, I would have done it.

WA: Karsten mentioned that there were some challenges with the Mumbo Jumbo character design, since his shape is so distinctive and out of proportion with the other characters in the film.

Stine: He is huge! It’s always fun to play with scale if you can, and there’s a lot of jokes about that in the movie. A lot of character designs reflect that Disney style with the giant heads and short arms, and it’s not very practical. We had to cheat a lot to make it work, because a lot of the stuff that happens in the film is actually not possible. So you do all the animation tricks you know: you cut out of it, you frame it a certain way. Of course a lot of it was solved in storyboarding, but then you’re working on the layout and you realize ‘oh my gosh he is BIG!’ A lot of the time the animators had to ask me how to do various things because his arms are too short. Technically you could just extend them; the rig is built that way, and of course he goes off model. There’s a lot of hugging in this film, and of course it’s actually impossible, but if you stage it and you cheat it, you can make it work. So we took it shot-by-shot, just making it work. And yes, he has very short arms and a lot of times you have him start the movement, and then you cut to see him finishing it, and your brain makes up for what’s in between. That’s the good thing about animation: you don’t actually have to do it as long as the audience believes you are doing it.

It’s not realistic in that sense, but I think that the designs are so simple that it helps you buy into it. It adds to the style, so you just accept that’s how things work in this universe. In fact, the more realistic you try to make things, the more you can get into trouble. The physics have to be believable: the characters need to have weight, and if they do, the audience will buy a lot of the impossible motions.

 

– Stine Buhl

WA: What’s the difference between working on an original concept and working on an adaptation of someone else’s work?

Stine: There’s something that can feel very safe about working on an adaptation, but it’s also scary because a lot of people love this book. It’s very popular in Denmark, and you don’t want to mess it up, so you need to respect what’s already there. So it’s staying true to what’s there, but also answering the questions of: ‘why should it be on the screen? Why is this a good film?’ 

You have to find the hook; the place in yourself where you know what you can bring to the project. How does it speak to you, and what voice can you give to it? I wasn’t part of the script writing process on this film; Karsten wrote the script, and he stayed very true to the book, which is good. I think in Mumbo Jumbo we are striving to develop a look that feels personal and characteristic. To me, that’s much more interesting, because you can feel that there’s a heart behind it.

WA: What’s ahead for you?

Stine: I’ve never taken a direct route managing my career. Instead, I always try to find something in every job that I can learn, and enjoy, and challenge myself, so that I keep growing. I really enjoy collaboration while doing animation, and I’ve been lucky enough to find people with whom I really share a similar taste and sense of humor…

What I really enjoy is working with people who are very good at their certain craft, and then trusting them to do it. You really make the best films by giving people ownership of the craft and of the aspect of the film they are working on, and let their voices be heard. I think that’s one of the reasons why A. Film is so successful: we’re not that many people, and we trust each other.

 

– Stine Buhl

I think people enjoy working on a film if they can actually see their footprint in it. It’s really hard work and people do it for so many years, so it should be fun.

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