Don Hertzfeldt

Don Hertzfeldt is an American independent animator, writer, and filmmaker whose hand-drawn works have earned a devoted following in global cinema circles. Born in 1976 in Fremont, California, Hertzfeldt began making short films as a student at UC Santa Barbara, quickly distinguishing himself with a lo-fi aesthetic that belied extraordinary emotional depth.

His breakout work Rejected (2000) — a collection of absurdist animated commercial pitches — earned an Academy Award nomination and became one of the most widely shared animated shorts of the early internet era. Hertzfeldt went on to create the feature-length It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012), a philosophically dense meditation on memory, illness, and mortality that Roger Ebert called “the most astonishing film of the year.”

The World of Tomorrow trilogy (2015–2020) cemented his reputation as one of the most daring voices in contemporary animation. The first installment, which screened at the Manhattan Short Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and received a second Oscar nomination. Hertzfeldt remains the only filmmaker to have won the Sundance short film prize twice, and nine of his shorts have competed there — a festival record.

Finalist Filmography

• World of Tomorrow — Manhattan Short 2015 Finalist