Enid Blyton is set to be given the big-screen treatment by Germany's new player UFA Cinema with a feature film based on the bestselling children's author's St Clare's books from the 1940s.

Known in Germany as Hanni & Nanni, Blyton's original stories about the O'Sullivan twin sisters' adventures at their girls boarding school were adapted and updated in the 1960s translations.

A series of new adventures were then commissioned by the books' publisher Franz Schneider Verlag from German authors in the 1970s and 1980s.

In addition, a Japanese anime 26-part TV series was directed by Masahara Okuwaki in 1991 and appeared on German television as Hanni & Nanni (the international English title was Mischievous Twins).

Production support of $ 616,000 (Euros 400,000) has already been allocated by the Bavarian public film fund FFF Bayern for the family entertainment project which will be directed by Christine Hartmann from a screenplay she has written with Jane Ainscough and Katharina Reschke.


According to FFF Bayern, the twins' adventures at the Linderhof boarding school has Hannelore Elsner, Katharina Thalbach, Heino Ferch and Anja Kling attached.

UFA Cinema is currently serving as a co-producer and distributor for Urs Odermatt's George Taboris Mein Kampf which is currently shooting in the east German town Zittau, starring Goetz George and Tom Schilling (who coincidentally appeared in one of the 'talking book' versions of the German Hanni & Nanni books).


The new producer-distributor was launched at the end of last year by the RTL Group and Freemantle Media through its German subsidiary UFA.

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