Production
The film is based on the children's book Mice Go to Heaven by Iva Procházková with illustrations by Marine Ludin. In the book, a little mouse called Whizzy flees from the hungry fox Whitebelly, misses a root, stumbles and falls off a high rock.
Born in Paris, Ludin studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Art in Nancy and illustration at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg with Rüdiger Stoye, graduating as a qualified designer in 2005. Since then, Ludin has worked as a freelance illustrator for German and French publishers. The Czech Procházková lived with her family in Germany for ten years. before returning to Prague. Her children's and youth books have been nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal and the Catholic Children's and Youth Book Prize and have been awarded the Friedrich Gerstäcker Prize, the Evangelical Book Prize and the German Youth Literature Prize. Ivan Pokorný had already filmed Procházková's youth novel Orange Days, which is set in the Lusatian mountains.
Even Mice Belong in Heaven was adapted for film by director and screenwriter Alice Nellis, who has won several Český lev awards, and Richard Malatinský, who previously worked mainly on television. Directed by Jan Bubeníček and Denisa Grimmová. For Grimmová it is her first full-length film. Bubeníček previously directed the feature film Smrtelné historky.
Myši patří do nebe, the original title of the film, was made in the Barrandov Studios in Prague. In addition to stop motion, CGI was also used. Animators include Frantisek Vasa, Piotr Ficner, Vojtech Kiss, Michal Kubíček, Katarzyna Okoniewska, Viliam Vala and Matous Valchar. The production design was created by director Denisa Grimmová and Jan Kurka. Radek Loukota acted as cameraman.
