Titina

Animated adventure aimed at a family audience that mixes traditional animation with archive images or stock footage. A highly imaginative, fictionalized animation movie inspired by the great expedition of Umberto Nobile, the famous Italian aeronautical engineer and explorer along with the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Nobile was a developer and promoter of semi-rigid airships in the years between the two World Wars. He is primarily remembered for designing and piloting the airship Norge, which may have been the first aircraft to reach the North Pole, and which was indisputably the first to fly across the polar ice cap from Europe to America. Nobile also designed and flew the Italia, a second polar airship; this second expedition ended in a deadly crash and provoked an international rescue effort. Embark on the extraordinary polar adventure of Nobile and Amundsen !. The true-ish story of the pet dog who conquered the North Pole !.

This agreeable Norway production is a moving story told through the eyes of the endearing little dog Tinina, a Terrier dog that Nobile found on the street and he became her master. When Titina accidentally knocks over a box full of memories, her owner Umberto finds it. Among them a film reel that recalls their exciting expedition to the Arctic. Thus Titina makes the viewer participate in the construction of the airship that takes them to the North Pole, in the setbacks and the fight of egos during the expedition, as well as its adventures and misadventures. The cartoons are fabulous and clean with a clear line, made in the traditional style or the more modern one in the wake of Miyazaki. Resulting in an exciting, fun and entertaining film. This stunning motion picture that has an enjoyable score was competently directed by Norwegian filmmaker Kajsa Næss.

The actual events in which is based are as follows: In late 1925 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen sought out Nobile to collaborate on a flight to the North Pole using an airship. Amundsen had previously in early 1925 flown to North Pole, in, but his plane were forced to land, and six men were trapped on the ice for 30 days. The Italian State Airship Factory, which had built Nobile's N-1, made it available for the expedition 29 March 1926. Amundsen insisted in the contract that Nobile should be the pilot and that five of the crew should be Italian; Amundsen named the airship Norge (Norway). On its way towards its Arctic jumping-off point, Ny-Ålesund (Kings Bay) at Vestspitsbergen, Svalbard (belonging to Norway) it also made a stop at the airship mast at Vadsø (Northern Norway). On 29 April Amundsen was dismayed at the arrival of Richard E. Byrd's American expedition, which also aimed to reach the Pole. On 9 May, after Byrd and Floyd Bennett departed in their Fokker F-VII and returned less than 16 hours later claiming to have overflown the Pole, Amundsen was one of the first to congratulate them. The Norge crew pressed ahead with their flight. On 11 May 1926, the Norge expedition left Svalbard. Fifteen and a half hours later the ship flew over the Pole and landed two days later in Teller, Alaska; strong winds had made the planned landing at Nome, Alaska, impossible. In retrospect, the Norge crew actually achieved their aim of being the first to overfly the Pole: Byrd's 9 May flight, acclaimed for decades as the prestigious first Polar flyover, has since been subjected to several credible challenges,including the discovery of Byrd's flight diary, which showed that navigational data in his official report was fraudulent. Byrd's co-pilot Bennett is said later to have admitted that they faked their flight to the Pole. The Norge flight was acclaimed as another great milestone in flight, but disagreement soon erupted between Nobile (designer and pilot), and Amundsen (expedition leader, observer and passenger) on the flight, as to who deserved greater credit for the expedition. The controversy was exacerbated by Mussolini's Fascist government, which trumpeted the genius of Italian engineering and exploration; Nobile was ordered to make a speaking tour of the U. S., further alienating Amundsen and the Norwegians. Despite the controversy, Nobile continued to maintain good relations with other polar scientists, and he started planning a new expedition, this time fully under Italian control. Nobile's company managed to sell the N-3 airship to Japan; however, relations between Nobile and his competitors in the fascist government were hostile, and he and his staff were subjected to threats and intimidation. The 'Italia', nearly identical to the Norge, was slowly completed and equipped for Polar flight during 1927-28. On 23 May 1928, after an outstanding 69-hour-long flight to the Siberian group of Arctic islands, the Italia commenced its flight to the North Pole with Nobile as both pilot and expedition leader. On 24 May, the ship reached the Pole and had already turned back toward Svalbard when it ran into a storm. On 25 May, the Italia crashed onto the pack ice less than 30 kilometres north of Nordaustlandet (Eastern part of Svalbard). Of the 16 men in the crew, ten were thrown onto the ice as the gondola was smashed; the remaining six crewmen were trapped in the buoyant superstructure as it ascended skyward due to loss of the gondola; the fate of the six men was never resolved. One of the ten men on the ice, Pomella, died from the impact; Nobile suffered a broken arm, broken leg, broken rib and head injury; Cecioni suffered two badly broken legs; Malmgren suffered a severe shoulder injury and suspected injury to a kidney; and Zappi had several broken ribs. A controversial search and rescue took place participating Amundsen himself who deceased at a plane crash. These events were adapted into the 1969 film 'The Red Tent, it was an Italian/Soviet co-production and featured Peter Finch as Nobile, Sean Connery as Amundsen.

I must confess that this kind of animation is not my cup of tea. I am suspicious about that type of foreign animation movies style of animation. I hadn't got any clue about the content of the movie before I got to see it, but I was hoping my kids would have liked it, because it seemed nice and smarter then other dumb Hollywood low and recyclable content.

I truly believe that this was god's plan about how to teach children about history. Take a movie, insert the content in a special manner and way and role the tape. It's a story that will soon be 100 years old and still feels so relevant to these days. It's a story about an important discovery that without this movie, they will probably not learn about.

The movie exposes the dog as its main character, but we can see that it isn't. The dog is a side character behind two very interesting people in the early years of latest century. The story about the dog is just an excuse to create a movie that includes one of the milestones from the beginning of latest century.

It is a story about humanity, pride, rivalry and national and personal achievements. The kids were fascinated for the whole (almost) ninety minutes and after finishing watching the movie, we all wanted to read about Umberto Nobile and Roald Amundsen so Kajsa Næss can understand that his job was achieved.

A very special movie. The styling of the characters is very unique. This is animation artwork of a very high level, far away from what we're used to in this digital animation age.

The story is very layered. Adults can see what really drives the protagonists, while kids can enjoy the journey of a really courageous and cute dog "Titina". What gives this movie an extra touch, is the historical aspect of the story. The real life historical footage is yet another unique feature of this charming animation movie.

A smile and a tear, a truly lovely movie. Hats off for the director, the designer and the hard work of the animation artists!

This is one of those rare movies that completely catches you off guard. The premise might seem boring at first glance, but the creativity put into this movie is top tier. You see the whole story through the perspective of the dog, titina, and that makes for some really marvellous scenes in the movie. They really use this premise for what its worth, for most of the movie. It is also really emotional at times, especially towards the end, but also very humorous. This movie has it all!! If you like good storytelling, beautiful art, and feeling like a kid again, this movie does not disappoint!! Would recommend for older kids though. Even though there is a age limit of 6yr, i think the movie may be a bit too complex and maybe even boring for smaller children at times, though there are scenes that are colourful and more poetic that would be fun for younger kids. Really depends on what your kid likes, though, thats just my take. For grown ups though, i think most people who like studio ghibli or pixar movies, would also enjoy this.

Beautiful image and that is the only good thing I have to say. Otherwise pretentious and therefore boring. The dialogues are there just to keep the story going with a few abstract lines on the lips of abstract characters. The script misses every chance for emotion or diving for real into a situation and processing it. Except for the two main male characters (not that there is much complexity in them either), everyone is abstract and fanthomatic. I can understand there could be an interesting explanation for such a choice, but if it's not counterbalanced by anything it simply seems narrow. The title fooled me that it's gonna be about the dog, but was it really?