Per Johan Axel Åhlin (born 7 August 1931) is a Swedish artist and director of animated films. He is known for his collaborations with the comedy duo

Hasse & Tage Hasse & Tage ( sv, Hasse och Tage) were a popular Swedish comedy duo featuring Hans "Hasse" Alfredson and Tage Danielsson. They are sometimes known as ''Hasseåtage'', a spelling created by the Swedish press in the 1960s, but never used by the du ...

and for his own projects such as the feature film ''

The Journey to Melonia ''The Journey to Melonia'' ( sv, Resan till Melonia; full English title: ''The Journey to Melonia: Fantasies of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest) is a 1989 Swedish-Norwegian animated adventure fantasy film directed by Per Åhlin, loosely based on Wi ...

''.

Career

Åhlin started his career as an artist for the

production ''Svenska bilder'' from 1964. After that he has worked on several other Hasse & Tage films, including the largely animated ''

Out of an Old Man's Head ''Out of an Old Man's Head'' ( sv, I huvet på en gammal gubbe) is a 1968 Swedish adult film directed by Per Åhlin and Tage Danielsson, starring Hans Alfredson as an old man remembering his past. Partly a black comedy, the film was released around ...

'' from 1968, and ''

The Adventures of Picasso ''The Adventures of Picasso'' ( sv, Picassos äventyr) is a 1978 Swedish surrealist comedy film directed by Tage Danielsson, starring Gösta Ekman, as the famous painter. The film had the tag-line ''Tusen kärleksfulla lögner av Hans Alfredso ...

'' from 1978, where he provided and animated

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

's paintings. In 1970 he started his own animation studio, PennFilm Studio AB situated in Hököpinge, and has, as of 2009, directed eight feature-length films and several shorts, including '' Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton'' which is shown on television every Christmas Eve in Sweden,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

and

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

In 1975 at the 11th Guldbagge Awards, Åhlin won a Special Achievement award for ''

Dunderklumpen! ''Dunderklumpen!'' is a 1974 Swedish family film directed by Per Åhlin, which combines animation and live action. The story involves several musical numbers. It was released on 26 September 1974. At the 11th Guldbagge Awards, Åhlin won a Special ...

''. In 1990 at the 25th Guldbagge Awards he won the Creative Achievement award. Although eventually best known for his work on children's film, Åhlin was always more interested in films for adult audiences. He has commented on the difficulties of making animated films with adult themes: "I don't know whether the problem lies in the audience or the marketing. But think like this: if you draw like Picasso, Doré or Sergel, then those are images that have no connection to film. If they then would be animated and suddenly started to move – would they become children's film then? I can't understand this!"

Selected filmography

* ''

'' (''I huvet på en gammal gubbe'') (1968) * ''

'' (1974) * '' Sagan om Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton'' (1975) short film * ''

'' (''Resan till Melonia'') (1989) * ''

The Dog Hotel ''Hundhotellet – En mystisk historia'' is a Swedish animated detective mystery/surreal film from 2000, directed by Per Åhlin who also wrote the script together with Hans Åke Gabrielsson. The film is traditionally animated by hand, the last fi ...

'' (''Hundhotellet'') (2000) * ''

That Boy Emil ''That Boy Emil'' (original: ''Emil & Ida i Lönneberga'') is a Sweden, Swedish animated film based on the Astrid Lindgren books of ''Emil i Lönneberga''. It was released to cinemas in Sweden on 25 December 2013. Plot Emil and his sister Ida li ...

'' (2013)

Unfinished projects

Åhlin has developed several films which have never been finished due to lack of funding or interested producers. His personal dream project, which has been in development since 1992, is the feature film ''Hoffmanns ögon'' (" Hoffmann's eyes"), which is based on

Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera '' ...

's opera ''

The Tales of Hoffmann ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died ...

''. As of 2009, Åhlin said that he still occasionally works on the project on his own: "Hopefully it can become a few minutes which can give potential producers remorse in the future". Other unfinished films include ''Den magiska saxofonen'' ("The magic saxophone"), ''HC Andersen'', and an adaptation of

Eric Linklater Eric Robert Russell Linklater CBE (8 March 1899 – 7 November 1974) was a Welsh-born Scottish poet, fiction writer, military historian, and travel writer. For ''The Wind on the Moon'', a children's fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Meda ...

's ''

The Wind on the Moon ''The Wind on the Moon: A story for children'' is a fantasy novel by Eric Linklater, published by Macmillan in 1944 with illustrations by Nicolas Bentley. The American division Macmillan US published an edition in the same year. Opening in the ...

'', with a screenplay by

Ulf Stark Ulf Gottfrid Stark (12 July 1944 – 13 June 2017) was a Swedish author and screenwriter (he adapted several of his own books for film and wrote the screenplay for the 1999 film '' Tsatsiki, morsan och polisen''). Stark has collaborated with th ...

. Designs and other finished material from these projects have been exhibited multiple times at events in Sweden.

References

External links

PennFilm Studio AB
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlin, Per 1931 births Living people Swedish film directors Swedish animated film directors Swedish animators