Torill Kove

Who is Torill Kove?

Torill Kove is a Norwegian born Canadian film director and animator. She won the 2007 Academy Award for Animated Short Film for the film The Danish Poet, co-produced by Norway's Mikrofilm AS and the National Film Board of Canada.

Born in Hamar, in the south of Norway near Oslo, Kove has lived in Montreal, Quebec in Canada since 1982. She moved to Montreal to continue academic studies in urban planning at Concordia University and she got a master degree in McGill University and later changed her major to animation. Her first academy Award nomination was for My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts, inspired by the story of her own grandmother, who actually ironed the shirts of Norway's King Haakon VII for many years.

In addition to directing and animating short films, she has also illustrated several children's books.

Her films The Danish Poet and My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts were included in the Animation Show of Shows.

Kove's 2014 NFB animated short, Me and My Moulton, is an autobiographical film about a little girl’s desire to fit in, which premieres at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.