Don Hertzfeldt

Don Hertzfeldt (born August 1, 1976 in Fremont, California) is an American animator, writer, and independent filmmaker whose stick‑figure universe has been hailed as one of the most influential forces in modern animation. Raised by an airline pilot father and a county library clerk mother, he began drawing comic books as a child and at fifteen taught himself animation with a battered VHS camcorder, later converting those early experiments into the student shorts Ah, L'Amour (1995) and Billy’s Balloon (1998). After graduating with a B.A. in Film Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1998, Hertzfeldt purchased a 35 mm Richardson rostrum camera and launched his professional career with the cult classic Rejected (2000), a satire that earned an Academy Award nomination and cemented his reputation for absurdist humor and daring visual experimentation. His relentless DIY ethic—writing, directing, animating, editing, performing voices, and even scoring his films—has allowed him to self‑distribute every project through his Bitter Films label, eschewing advertising and corporate sponsorship. From the philosophically bleak Everything Will Be OK trilogy (2006‑2011) to the critically lauded feature It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) and the sci‑fi anthology World of Tomorrow (2015) and its sequels, Hertzfeldt has amassed eight Sundance Short competition entries, a record two Grand Jury Prizes, four Academy Award nominations, and countless international honors. Critics regularly describe his work as simultaneously tragic and hilarious, crude yet deeply hopeful, and his hand‑drawn aesthetic—often captured on 16 mm or 35 mm film before the digital shift—remains a touchstone for animators seeking a personal voice. Recent releases such as the experimental musical short ME (2024) and his curation of the Animation Mixtape (2025) demonstrate his ongoing commitment to expanding the boundaries of the medium while mentoring a new generation of independent creators.