ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the early life of Michael Dudok de Wit in the Netherlands, and it is delineated through the filmmaker’s recollections of his formative years. The elementary school, domestic life in Dudok de Wit’s old family house in Laren, growing up in the midst of the Dutch flatland and his early discoveries about the art of comics and animation are followed by “the incredible freedom of student life” at the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Geneva, Switzerland. The filmmaker discovers his vocation in animation at the Annecy International Festival of Animated Films in 1975 and decides to enroll BA course in animation studies in Farnham, England (1975–1978). His graduation film The Interview (1978), based on a round-headed character from his student’s comic strips will contain all the future characteristics of his output. The filmmaker’s early career starts in Barcelona, Spain, where he collaborates with several animation studios. However, the year spent in this Mediterranean port is marked by his first existential crisis interrelated with the professional one.
