Paul Driessen: My Life in Cartoons

With his instantly recognisable style and drawn worlds inhabited by whimsical characters, he has been of great influence for the Dutch animation industry. Perhaps most fascinating is how Driessen has been balancing simplicity and complexity for decades now. Somewhere between cheerful and melancholic, playful and dead serious, lighthearted and profound, his filmography is original to the bone. And Paul is here to walk you through it on the occasion of the publication of his autobiography My Life in Cartoons, published by At Bay Press (2024).

Born in 1940 in Nijmegen, just before the Germans invaded the Netherlands, Driessen didn't have a prosperous future cut out for him. Yet, he was fascinated by drawing little, funny figures from the very beginning, arguably inspired by his parents who were arts and culture advocates. After an isolated time in post-WOII Russia and depressing school days in Rotterdam, he got his chance at a small studio in Hilversum under the auspices of Jim Hiltz. His big break came when he was invited to go to London to work on the imaginative Beatles film Yellow Submarine (1968). In 1970, Driessen made his directorial debut, The Story of Little John Bailey, which was one of the very first indie animated shorts in the Netherlands. Hearing of the artistic freedom at the National Film Board of Canada, he moved overseas and began a long on/off collaboration with the NFB while also producing his own shorts in his home country. Deservedly so, Driessen's vision led him to an Academy Award nomination in 2000 for 3 Misses (1998). And Driessen's story is far from over.

Although he has been heard saying on record that he prefers to walk out of the room when he has to endure a retrospective of his own work, Paul has promised to stay put to tell you all about himself, his films and cartoons, and his intriguing life story.