Michael Dudok de Wit

Michael Dudok de Wit at the Festival d'Animation Annecy 2019

Michael Dudok de Wit (* 1953 in Abcoude , Netherlands ) is a Dutch animated film director and animator .

biography

Inspired by Eastern European cartoons, he studied animation at the West Surrey College of Art in England. He graduated in 1978 with the film The Interview . He then worked in Barcelona for a year and then moved to London , where he created award-winning commercials.

With Tom Sweep , he made a three-minute animated film in France in 1992, which was followed in 1994 by The Monk and the Fish ( Le moine et le poisson ), which he produced in the Folimage production studio . This work, which is about a Buddhist monk obsessively hunting a fish, became his breakthrough; he won several awards, including a César and a nomination for an Oscar for " best animated short film ", and was invited to the world's most important animation festivals in the following period.

His next film Father and Daughter (2000) brought him even more awards . This tells of a girl who says goodbye to her father who is going to sea and who waits for his return until the end of her life. The film received the SWR Audience Award at the Stuttgart Animated Film Festival in 2002 and was awarded an Oscar and the Cristal d'Annecy in 2001 .

In addition, Dudok de Wit, who lives in London, has repeatedly worked for The Walt Disney Company , where he worked as an animator on the films Beauty and the Beast , Fantasia 2000 and Mickey's Audition . He has also illustrated several children's books (including Oskar and Huu ) and gives lectures on animation at various universities. In order to make a living, he continues to produce commercials.

For The Red Turtle from 2016 he was nominated together with Toshio Suzuki for an Oscar in the category Best Animated Feature Film in 2017 .

style

Dudok de Wit makes his films using traditional animation techniques . He mostly paints his minimalist backgrounds, often vast landscapes, with watercolors and charcoal, while digitally coloring his figures on the PC. Through his coloring he creates “nostalgic tones.” He painted his experimental film The Aroma of Tea (2006) with the help of tea. He himself says of his style: “In my drawings I pay very close attention to atmosphere, light and shadow, and space. The frequent use of shadows has become my favorite optical technique. "

His films manage without dialogue and deal with different topics. While Le moine et le poisson is humorous, Father and Daughter tells of a personal fate that is supposed to appeal to the viewer emotionally.

Filmography

• 1978: The Interview
• 1992: Tom Sweep
• 1994: The Monk and the Fish (Le moine et le poisson)
• 2000: Father and Daughter
• 2006: The Aroma of Tea
• 2016: The red turtle (La Tortue rouge)

Web links

• Michaël Dudok de Wit in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Liz Faber, Helen Walters: Animation Unlimited. Innovative Short Films Since 1940. London 2004, Laurence King Publishing, ISBN 1-85669-346-5 , S. 178th
2. ↑ Father and Daughter at Animation World Magazine ( memento of the original from August 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Anima Mundi: Animation Now! . Cologne 2007, Taschen Verlag, ISBN 3-8228-3789-X , pp. 186-187.
4. ↑ The Aroma of Tea at ARTE  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.