Born: 1946, Seattle, USA
Even as a child, Caroline Leaf had an avid interest in reading and drawing.
Encouraged by her parents, she went on to study visual arts at Radcliffe. In 1969, she tried animating with sand and before the year was out, Leaf had animated her first film, Sand or Peter and the Wolf.
After her next film, Orfeo (1972), Leaf joined the National Film Board of Canada's English Animation Studio and not long after she left for the Far North. On her return in 1974, she made the wryly humorous The Owl Who Married a Goose: An Eskimo Legend.
Her following two films, "The Street" (1976) and "The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa" (1977), brought her international acclaim. The Street garnered 22 awards, including the Academy Award and the latter won 10 awards.
Feeling she had reached a plateau in animation, Leaf teamed up with experimental filmmaker Veronika Soul to make "Interview".
Then she tried her hand at documentary, making the profile Kate and Anna McGarrigle (1981), and in 1982 made the educational drama "An Equal Opportunity".
In 1986, she returned to animation, making two films inspired by Chinese and Mexican legends. Her next film "Two Sister" (1990) won the award for best short film at Annecy Animated Film Festival.
She has also made a one-minute animated monochrome clip for MTV named "I Met a Man".

Betacam / 10'26'' / 1990

Two Sisters

Viola writes novels in a darkened room. Marie, her sister and only companion, takes care of her every need. Together, they are an island unto themselves, quiet and complete in their isolation. And then the abrupt arrival of a stanger throws their tenuous order into chaos.

Betacam / 7'38'' / 1974

The Owl Who Married a Goose

In this Inuit legend it is plausible enough that a goose should capture the fancy of an owl and that the owl should be quite bewildered by what follows.

Betacam / 10'12'' / 1976

The Street

It makes what is sometimes an embarrassingly frank statement about how many families respond to their old and infirm members. The filmmaker interprets reactions to a dying grandmother, capturing family feelings and distilling them into harsh reality.

Born: 1940, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
With the Netherlands in the midwar, Driessen had a hard time as a child. He studied graphics at Utrecht School of Fine Arts before joining a small studio at Hilversum. He also made animated films for TV with Jim Hiltz who for the first time gave him the chances to learn different techniques of animation. Since then Driessen has been known as "The Flying Dutchman".
Driessen believes that his subconscious animation up to this period indicates that he has not been under any artistic influences.
In 1967 he collaborated in "Yellow Submarien" in London while he made his first film "The Story of the Little John Bailey" in the Netherlands.
In 1970 he joined National Film Board of Canada, shuttling between the Board and his studio in the Netherlands. He co-directed with Nico Crama to animate "The Killing of an Egg" (1966) and "David" (1966).
His other films include: "Cat's Cradle" (1974), "On Land, At Sea and in the Air", "Elbowing", "Oh, What a Knight!" (1982), "An old Box", "Spotting a Cow".

Cat's Cradle

An animated fable without words, starring some Gothic characters--witches, cloaked riders, and the like--in a tale about the hungry natural world.

An Old Box

While the town's people in the village square raucously celebrate Christmas, a derelict old man wandering in an alley rescues a discarded box from the garbage collectors. The box turns out to be magical, taking him on a spiritual journey far more fantastic than any of the villagers are likely to experience.

The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg

In this cautionary table, the young protagonist, bored with his lot, imagines a diabolic and dangerous life of adventure. The mundae life that he always wanted to escape, is what he wishes to recapture.

Born: 1940, Amesterdam, Holland
Jacobus-Willem (Co) Hoedeman left school at age 15 to work as a photograph retoucher in the printing industry but soon decieded he would rather work in cinema. He started out multifilm and then woved to Cinecentrum in Hilversum, where he was assigned to the optical and special effects section. Not having enough to do, he also helped out in various other areas such as camera, laboratory and sound. During this time, he took evening courses at the School of Fine-Arts in Amsterdam and the School of Photography in The Hague. He was given increasingly complex work: transitions, models, commercials (design, sets, editing and directing).
Hoedman immigrated to Canada in 1965 and was hired as a production assistant by the National Film Board. In 1967-68, he made the educational film "Continental Drift". The recently created French Animation Studio then gave him the chance to make what he terms his first "real" film, "Oddball", soon to be followed by "Matrioska" and "Tchou-Tchou".
In 1970, he spent four months in the ormer Czechoslovakia studying puppet animation. On his return, he makes a series of animated films illustrating Inuit Legends: "The man and the Giant: An Eskimo Legend", "The Owl and the Lemming: An Eskimo Legend", "The Owl and the Raven: An Eskimo Legend" and "Lumaaq: An Eskimo Legend".
Hoedman received an Oscar in 1978 for "The Sand Castle". His next film Charles and Francois (1988) is a touching film about aging and death.
In 1992, Hoedman gave a workshop for students aged 4 to 12 at Lafontaine elementary school in Montreal. The participants created their own video, called Les Droits de L'Enfant a Monteal. That same year, he made "The Sniffing Bear", a cautionary tale about substance abuse based on an idea proposed by a group of Amerindian and Inuit inmates at La Macaza Penitentiary.
Hoedman is currently working on a film with an ecological message, using puppets constructed from handmade paper.
Hoedman's films are seen all over the world and have won more than 50 awards to date. He is often asked to act as a special effects consultant or filmmaking advisor.

Betacam / 13'12'' / 1977

The Sand Castle

The story of the Sandman and the creatures he sculpts out of sand who under his direction, build a castle and celebrate the completion of their new home, only to be interrupted by an uninvited guest. The wind blows, and the castle crumbles.

Betacam / 15'24'' / 1988

Charles and Francois

The story follows a grandfather and his grandson through the different stages of their lives, they become closer, common experiences diminished the difference in age. By the end of the film, both are over one hundred years old an they are almost indistinguishable.

Betacam / 9'57'' / 2000

A Crocodic in My Garden

Magical thinking governs Ludovic's world. Ludovic, in his garden, reigns over his menagerie of paper animals and their jungle home. When they refuse to obey him, Ludovic quits playing with them and pouts. But reconciliation is not far off.