Anders Morgenthaler

Anders Morgenthaler was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1972. From early age he communicated through drawing. It can be said to have been his means of survival through the public school system. After graduating high school in 1992, he worked as a self-taught animator/designer at ITE (Interactive Television Entertainment), making Hugo the Troll, the world's first interactive television cartoon game. He left ITE when he was accepted at the Danish Design College in 1995, determined to go further and to be accepted at the Danish Film school. The design school, located in Jutland, made Anders very disciplined which might have had something to do with his regard of Jutland as a hole in the ground. It didn't do much for his social skills, however, so when he got accepted at The Danish Film School in 1998 he needed to function socially, making contacts and working with people constantly. This led to the founding of TV-Animation in collaboration with Tom Vedel and Mikkel Lee, a cartoon company which over the next three years grew to be the second-largest cartoon company in Denmark next to A-film A/S. Being creative director of TV-Animation and attending film school led to a minor breakdown in an airplane leaving the Annecy film festival in 1999. This made Anders a more fragile person, but also a stronger director. His school movies got better, and at the same time TV-Animation kept growing, making series and interactive cartoon shows, with innovative programing and characters. In 2001 and 2002, Anders wrote and directed his exam movie; not following the rules of doing a seven minute movie, he made a feature film together with producer David Østerbøg with a budget of $11,700. The Danish Film School accepted that the film be finalised.