(The best program in the Early Education Category)
"My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts"
Entered by National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Category: Early Education
[Content]
Although she has a faded photograph of her grandmother as a young
woman, Torill Kove remembers her grandmother as the white-haired
woman who is the focus of this animated program. The program shifts
from the reality of a historical sketch of the kings of Norway,
to the fantasy world of one who couldn't iron his shirts and asked
Torill's grandmother, who worked in a laundry, to iron them. When
the king flees to the country during World War II, Torill's grandmother
instigates a systematic laundry sabotage of the occupying army.
She and her fellow shirt-ironers put itching powder and insects
in uniforms and burn them so badly that eventually the army has
nothing to wear and is happy to leave at the end of the war.
[Jury comments]
The program was an original, innovative and effective in its approach
to story- telling and to history. The script was well written,
the music well chosen, the story well structured and the animation
style exceptional. Using visual wit and humor, the program approached
history from a personal and lateral perspective and motivated
the viewer to learn more.