The Elfkins: Baking a Difference

The Elfkins: Baking a Difference is a German animated family film about the Heinzelmännchen, the legendary Cologne gnomes said to have helped craftsmen at night before they were driven away two centuries ago. In the present day, a young gnome named Helvi grows restless in the underground world her people have lived in ever since, and she heads up to the surface to find out what she is good at. There she meets Theo, a grumpy baker whose shop is losing customers to a competitor, and the two of them work together to save the business.

Directed by Ute von Münchow-Pohl, the film followed her 2017 feature Rabbit School: Guardians of the Golden Egg and preceded Rabbit Academy: Mission Eggpossible and The Super Elfkins. Jan Strathmann wrote the screenplay, Dirk Beinhold produced, and the voice cast includes Jella Haase as Helvi, Louis Hofmann as Kipp, Elke Heidenreich as Vendla, Leon Seidel as Butz, Detlef Bierstedt as Theo and Rolf Berg as Bruno.

The film runs 78 minutes and was released in 2019, taking about 6 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6 out of 10 from around 630 votes, while on TMDB it has 6.6 out of 10 from a much smaller base of about 50 votes. Both point to a modest, generally favourable reception for a low-budget German animated release.