The Snow Queen (2005)

Directed by

Julian Gibbs

Genre

fantasy film, children's film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

56 min

Rating

5.4 of 10 from 12 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young girl named Gerda travels through a magical winter landscape to rescue her friend Kay from the Snow Queen. The story is told mostly through songs with very little spoken dialogue. The film is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

musicalwhimsicalfairytalegentleslowdreamlikeoperaticlyrical

What happens

The Snow Queen is a 2005 BBC television film commissioned by Michael Carrington that is based on the 1844 Hans Christian Andersen fairytale of The Snow Queen. Directed by Julian Gibbs, it stars Juliet Stevenson as Gerda's mother and the voice of Patrick Stewart as the raven. This film was originally conceived as a vehicle for music composed by Paul K. Joyce. A set of operatic songs had been written by Paul K. Joyce for a concert at the Barbican Arts Centre held in 2003. The songs narrated the fairytale of The Snow Queen and featured Sydney Rae White as the lead girl soprano, Juliet Stevenson as the narrator and the London Symphony Orchestra providing instrumentals. Due to the success of the concert, a full-fledged film was developed around the original songs, and in which Sydney White and Juliet Stevenson returned to contribute as actresses. The songs written by Paul K. Joyce are central to the film, providing main narration throughout the story. Actual dialogue is sparse, and most notable is that the Snow Queen herself has no lines. The story also focuses entirely on Gerda's journey, with all others, including Kay himself, acting as supporting characters. However, the character of the Raven (voiced by Patrick Stewart) was given more prominence as he follows Gerda throughout her entire journey. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• The Snow Queen (1957)
• Snow Queen (2002)
• The Snow Queen (1986)
• Die Schneekönigin (2014)
• The Ice Tower (2025)
• Hilda and the Mountain King (2021)
• Cinderella (2015)
• H.C. Andersens eventyrlige verden: Hyrdinden og skorstensfejeren (2005)