Barbie: Thumbelina is a 2009 animated fantasy film directed by Conrad Helten. It was released on March 17, 2009, and it made its television premiere on Nick Jr. UK on December 24, 2012. The fifteenth film in the Barbie film series, it is a modern retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale Thumbelina. The film centers around Thumbelina, a "twillerbee" who befriends a human girl, and both must cooperate their strength in order to save the environment. This was the last Barbie movie to be distributed by Entertainment Rights outside North America before their closure and Mattel signing a new deal with Universal Pictures outside North America.
DVD cover art
Thumbelina is a literary fairy tale written by the famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It was first published by C. A. Reitzel on 16 December 1835 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with "The Naughty Boy" and "The Travelling Companion" in the second installment of Fairy Tales Told for Children. Thumbelina is about a tiny girl and her adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. She successfully avoids their intentions before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size.
Illustration by Vilhelm Pedersen, Andersen's first illustrator