The Messy Gnome

The Messy Gnome («Rotenissen») is a charming and mischievous children’s musical short film written and directed by Christian Lo and produced by Filmbin. The film playfully explores a question familiar to families everywhere: why does life get so wonderfully messy at home?

We meet young Hennie, played by Oda Elisabeth Lien, and her increasingly confused dad, portrayed by Frode Winther. Frank Kjosås plays the pivotal title character of Rotenissen. With a generous dose of magical mischief, The Messy Gnome celebrates imagination, playfulness and the art of embracing a bit of chaos.

From my side, this project has been a long time coming. It was originally meant to be my second collaboration with Christian Lo, right after we did our first feature film, Rafiki, together in 2009. The main musical number for Rotenissen was actually written back in 2010 — fifteen years before the film finally went into production. But as is often the case, things didn’t quite unfold as planned, and the film ended up on the shelf while we went on to do The Tough Guys (2013), From Mice to Men (2016) and Los Bando (2017). At long last, in 2025, the time was finally right for Rotenissen to come to life — and I couldn’t be happier to have composed its music.