Anna and the Moods

The Icelandic writer Sjón awaits offers from Hollywood after the cartoon Anna and the Moods was premiered in Tjarnarbíó at the Reykjavik International Film Festival last weekend. One of the figures in the cartoon is based on Sjón's real life character. The cartoon is about half an hour and Gunnar Karlsson at Caoz is the director. Sjón wrote the script and is the storyteller who walks around the set as a cartoon figure.

„I'm very happy about being a cartoon figure and hope I will receive more offers as this figure," says Sjón. „I hope big production companies will see how clever this figure is and offer him a part in a big production cartoon. Preferably I would like to be cast in Toy Story 3, because the other two Toy Story films are among the best films that have come from Hollywood in recent years," says Sjón.

Actor Jóhann Sigurjónsson is the voice of the storyteller and Sjón's figure, but in the English version Terry Jones, member of Monty Python, is his voice. „The plan was that the figure would look like Terry Jones but one day I went to the Caoz office and Gunnar Karlsson had already created the figure based on my looks. I was very surprised but very happy also."

Anna and the Moods started as a story Sjón wrote and performed with the Brodsky quartet at a concert in England to a composition by Julian Nott. „The figures came alive there but of course it was rewritten and adjusted for the cartoon," says Sjón.

Sjón speaks for a crazy doctor both in the Icelandic and English version, and Björk is the voice of Anna in the English version. „In the Icelandic version Ólafía Hrönn is the voice of Anna, she is the Icelandic Björk," says Sjón with a laugh.

Anna and the Moods will be distributed after the New Year and Sjón says he is taking it easy these days. „I don't have a book coming out before this Christmas, however I would like to work on a musical from Anna and the Moods, there is so much in Julian Nott's music that can be taken further," says the poet and writer Sjón.