Aleksi Bardy, producer, writer and managing director of Helsinki-filmi compares The Emperor’s Secret to American productions on a technical scale. In terms of content, he thinks they are even better.

“I wanted it all — thrills, humor, touching moments — all of it in a package that reaches out to both kids and adults alike. I wanted this movie to serve the needs of myself, a first-grader and a three-year-old. For the parents, we have pop music and slapstick comedy, for the kids we have great emotions and wisdom.

“Technically, The Emperor’s Secret comes astonishingly close to major American productions. When it comes to the content, I think we are even better. The movie has a message — which I won’t tell because that would be boring.

“The most difficult part in screenwriting is putting the story into a few sentences. For the adult audience, I’ve tried to learn to explain The Emperor’s Secret as a synthesis of Nordic storytelling and international children’s animation culture — a study of civil freedom and changing family forms masked as an adventure.

“But I can tell the truth to the children. This is a story about friends, who fight against an evil emperor and his man-eating turkey!”

Bob Swain is an animation scriptwriter based at Sidewinder Films in the U.K. He has attended every edition of Cartoon Forum since it began in 1990.