MONTREAL – Academy Award-winning Dutch-Canadian animator Co Hoedeman has died, the National Film Board of Canada said Tuesday.
The “master of stop-motion animation” died at age 84 on Monday in Montreal, the NFB said.
“Co Hoedeman was a master animator, whose long career at the NFB was distinguished by innovative filmmaking and powerful humanitarian themes,” NFB Chair Suzanne Guèvremont said in a written statement.
“He cared deeply for the well-being of children and was also a fierce defender of the importance of public filmmaking.”
Hoedeman won the best animated short Oscar at the 50th Academy Awards for 1977’s “The Sand Castle.”
In the 13-minute stop-motion film, Hoedeman brings sand to life.
The short follows a humanoid sandman who creates living creatures from the sand around him. Together, they build a sand castle — but when the wind starts to blow, they run into the castle for shelter and it collapses around them.
Whether the creatures can dig themselves out and start the cycle again or become subsumed by the sand is left up to interpretation.
Hoedeman also won the BAFTA for best animated film for 1972’s “Tchou-tchou,” which was made using wooden blocks.
He went on to create the character of Ludovic the teddy bear, which appeared in four NFB shorts starting in 1998 and was adapted into a TV series in 2009.
Though many of his films were lighthearted and whimsical, he tackled more serious subject matter towards the end of his career, starting with “55 Socks” in 2011.
The film draws on his own childhood memories of the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-45, a famine that resulted from German forces blocking food transportation in the Netherlands.
In 2014, he would create “The Blue Marble,” a short about a girl who is kidnapped and sent to a camp for child soldiers.
His final film, “The Cardinal,” came in 2016 and explores themes of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The NFB and the Canadian animation community have lost a dear friend and colleague. Fortunately for us, we have his legacy of beloved works, which embody so much of his unique spirit,” Guèvremont said.
— By Nicole Thompson in Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2025.
