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Paul Driessen

Paul Driessenb. March 30, 1940, Nijmegen, The Netherlands


A constant experimenter who refuses to repeat himself and regularly moves on to new challenges, Paul Driessen’s philosophical and wryly whimsical animation is characterized by a forceful graphic style and subtle humour. An ongoing fascination with the elements that make up an animated film places him closer to the camp of Michael Snow than that of Disney (indeed, he has admitted to not seeing Snow White until he was twenty-four).

 
Having drawn cartoons from an early age, Driessen trained in graphic design and illustration at the Art Academy in Utrecht and shortly afterwards began animating commercials for Dutch TV. In 1967, he apprenticed with Canadian expatriate George Dunning in London on the seminal animated feature Yellow Submarine (1968). He came to Canada in 1970 and worked initially with Gerald Potterton on Tiki Tiki (1971) before joining the NFB’s French animation studio in 1972. After a five-year stint at the NFB, he began to divide his time between Canada and the Netherlands, worked for Radio-Canada, made several films in the Netherlands and wrote and illustrated books for children.

 
His Dutch-made Three Misses (1998) earned an Academy Award®-nomination in 2000 and the NFB-produced The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg (2001) won a Genie for Best Animated Short. In addition, Driessen has won more than fifty international awards and received Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the Ottawa and Zagreb animation festivals. He teaches at the prestigious animation department of Germany’s Kassel University and continues to live in both Montreal and the Netherlands.

 
By Andrew McIntosh, with excerpts from Take One’s Essential Guide to Canadian Film

Film and video work includes

Ceta Bever: Olifant, 1965 (animator; TV commercial)

Ceta Bever: Vlieg, 1965 (animator; TV commercial)

Ceta Bever: Bus, 1965 (animator; TV commercial)
KLM Werkkleding, 1965 (animator; TV commercial
Wereld op Wielen, 1965 (animator; TV commercial)

The Story of Little Yoghurt, 1968 (director; writer; producer; animator)

Yellow Submarine, 1968 (animator)

Tiki Tiki, 1971 (animator)

Air!, 1972 (director; animator)

Le Bleu perdu, 1972 (director; animator)

Au bout du fil, 1974 (director; animator)

The Happy Prince, 1974 (animator)

Une Vieille boîte, 1975 (director; animator)

David, 1977 (director; animator)

The Killing of an Egg, 1977 (director; animator)

Reseau Soleil, 1977 (animator; TV commercial)

Jeu de coudes, 1979 (director; animator)

Ter land, ter zee en in de lucht/On Land, at Sea, and in the Air, 1980 (director; animator)

Une Histoire comme une autre, 1981 (director; animator)

Le Rejeton, 1981 (co-writer with Jean Charlebois)

La Belle et la boîte, 1982 (director; animator)

Home on the Rails, 1982 (director; animator)

Anijam, 1984 (animator)

Het Scheppen van een koe/Spotting a Cow, 1984 (director; animator)

Tip Top, 1984 (director; animator)

Animation in the Netherlands, 1985 (appears as himself)

Elephantrio, 1985 (co-director with Graeme Ross; John Weldon; co-animator with Graeme Ross; John Weldon)

Sunny Side Up, 1985 (director; animator)

Tellement Plus/Place Desjardins, 1985 (animator; TV commercial)

Getting There, 1986 (director; animator)

The Traingang, 1986 (director; writer; cinematographer; co-editor with Linda Wilson; co-animator with Dieter Mueller, Danny Antonucci, Al Sens, et al.)                 

Candyjam, 1988 (co-animator with David Anderson, Karen Aqua, Craig Bartlett, et al.)

The Writer, 1988 (director; animator)

The Last Tree, 1989 (animator; TV commercial)

Uncles and Aunts I, II, and III, 1989 - 1992 (co-director with Michaela Pavlatova);

Pink Komkommer, 1991 (animator)

The Water People, 1992 (director; animator)

The End of the World in Four Seasons, 1995 (director; animator)

Quest, 1996 (story consultant)

3 Misses, 1998 (director; writer; animator)

Beyond the Blue Meanies: The Animation of Paul Driessen, 1999 (director)

The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg, 2000 (director; writer; animator)

2D or not 2D, 2003 (director; writer; animator; art direction)

Note: Updated to June 30, 2005


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