2D or not 2D – the shortcut

Colour, 35 mm
Netherlands, Canada, 2004, 12 min
Section: Focus on the Netherlands

Synopsis

A chubby boy with a little dog runs across the hills to see his beloved chubby girlfriend who has a little lamb. But the mountain dwellers are separated by a mysterious thin wall. In his endeavour to overcome this impenetrable obstacle, the boy finds himself in a bizarre world of two-dimensional people, animals and objects... This surreal animated piece could be taken as an unusual response to the mathematical satire by English schoolmaster Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884).

About the director

Paul Driessen (b. 1940, Nijmegen) studied at the Art Academy in Utrecht. He went off to Great Britain in 1967 and was involved as an animator in the Beatles fantasy Yellow Submarine (1968). He has made around two dozen short films which have won various awards, including a Silver Bear at the Berlinale for On Land, at Sea and in the Air (Te land, ter zee en in de lucht, 1980). He has written and illustrated several books for children and teaches at Kassel’s Academy of Art.