Ik Ben Hier

The scouts

Hand-drawn animation about existential dread sounds like every festival circuit indie, except Goudswaard actually commits to the surreal without winking—the visual language refuses to comfort you, which is rare enough to matter.

There's a lineage here: the philosophical animation tradition of Michaël Dudok de Wit meets the anxious formalism of contemporary European shorts, and Goudswaard understands both languages well enough to speak in her own accent.

The decision to animate the fear of oblivion through mark-making itself—where the hand drawing becomes inseparable from the subject—is the kind of formal choice that transforms a five-minute sketch into something that stays with you.

Festivals

• Anima Brussels 2024