Gnomes is an American 1980 animated film, based on the book with the same title

Gnomes (book)

Gnomes is a 1977 book, one in a series of books, written by Wil Huygen and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet....

 by the Dutch Wil Huygen

Wil Huygen

Wil Huygen , was a Dutch book author. He is best known for the picture books on gnomes, illustrated by Rien Poortvliet....

 and Rien Poortvliet

Rien Poortvliet

Rien Poortvliet was a Dutch draughtsman and painter.Born in Schiedam, he was best known for his of animals and for "Gnomes" in the famous series of books by Wil Huygen and published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. of New York City.Being a plasterer's son from Schiedam, making a living as an artist did...

. The movie was nominated for an Emmy in 1981 for Outstanding Animated Program.

Several years after this film was released, the television series, The World of David the Gnome

The World of David the Gnome

The World of David the Gnome, originally titled David el Gnomo , is a Spanish animated television series based on the children's book The Secret Book of Gnomes, by the Dutch author Wil Huygen and illustrator Rien Poortvliet...

was created, which was also based on the same novel.

Plot

This made for TV movie is all about a family of forest gnomes who live together in their home under a tree. The family consists of a father, mother, grandfather, older son Tor, and a set of young twins. The movie mainly concerns itself with Tor, his upcoming marriage to his fiancee Lisa, and his family's preparations for the wedding. The gnome family busies itself with decorating and preparing for the festivities, meanwhile a family of trolls plan on ruining the wedding for the gnomes. The troll family consists of a dumb troll father, a bossy mother troll who's fond of wearing a snake in her hair and smoking, her two bumbling older sons, and a young troll affectionately called "Runt".

Adding to the wedding mishaps is Tor's uncle Kostya who came all the way from Siberia to crash the wedding ceremony

Wedding crashing

Wedding crashing is the act of coming to a wedding without an invitation.-In real life:Some of the most common reasons for crashing a wedding in real life are:...

, he makes mischief by adding extra alcohol to Grandpa's special punch, and making some inappropriate advances to the mother of the bride.

The movie also contains a handful of vignettes which use still illustrations from the original book and narration to explain some of the facts about the different sorts of gnomes, and what sorts of duties gnomes perform to help the creatures they live amongst.

Airing

It was once common to see this film played on cable television movie channels, however it has since become very hard to find as it is not readily available for sale on DVD or VHS.

Copyright status

It was quite popular in Sweden where it has a fairly large fan base, but due to its unclear copyright status (after the production company shut down) further viewing was deemed impossible by Sveriges Television

Sveriges Television

Sveriges Television AB , Sweden's Television, is a national television broadcaster based in Sweden, funded by a compulsory fee to be paid by all television owners...

 until the status was resolved. Member of Parliament of Sweden

Parliament of Sweden

The Riksdag is the national legislative assembly of Sweden. The riksdag is a unicameral assembly with 349 members , who are elected on a proportional basis to serve fixed terms of four years...

 Karl Sigfrid aimed a written question to Minister for Justice

Minister for Justice (Sweden)

The Minister for Justice is the justice minister of Sweden and head of the Ministry of Justice. The current Minister for Justice is Beatrice Ask of the Moderate Party....

 Beatrice Ask

Beatrice Ask

Eva Carin Beatrice Ask is a Swedish Moderate Party politician currently serving as Minister for Justice in the Swedish government.- Biography :...

how this and similar issues should be resolved.

DVD releases

Despite no official news about the copyright status, a DVD release has now been announced for Sweden set for release on December 1. The distributor is the Norwegian company CCV.