Interview:
Don Hertzfeldt,
curator,
"The Animation Mixtape"
Austin-based animator Don Hertzfeldt is paying it forward with his latest endeavor, The Animation Mixtape. Before earning his Oscar nomination for his 2000 short Rejected, Hertzfeldt made a name for himself with his student short films selected to the Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation annual touring program. In the 2000s, Hertzfeldt and Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge created The Animation Show, a Spike and Mike-inspired touring festival that mixed new, old, and classic shorts. With The Animation Mixtape, Hertzfeldt revives the concept of the touring animation festival with this feature-length compilation of 12 animated shorts that will only screen in movie theaters. Hertzfeldt’s goal is to introduce audiences to work by emerging artists and to shine a spotlight on older and classic shorts that played on the big screen in years, if at all in this YouTube era. The Animation Mixtape boasts shorts of various styles from across the world by Mark Baker, Richard Condie, Corrine James, Nicolas Ménard, Jesse Moynihan, Takeshi Murata, Kasia Nalewajka, David O’Reilly, Mats Rzonthowski, Jonatan Schwenk, and Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis. The compilation also includes new wraparounds by Hertzfeldt and previously unseen line animation by the late visual artist Bruce Bickford. The Animation Mixtape opens Friday at the AFS Cinema. Austin-based animator Don Hertzfeldt’s shorts include ME, the World of Tomorrow series, and the Oscar-nominated Rejected. Hertzfeldt’s 2012 feature It’s Such a Beautiful Day—which comprises of the titular short and the earlier works Everything Will Be OK and I Am So Proud of You—was reissued in 2024 and toured with Hertzfeldt’s animated release, ME. Hertzfeldt is currently working on three new projects, including the animated feature Antarctica, which counts Ari Aster among Hertzfeldt’s collaborators. Aired: Sept. 3, 2025. Web sites: https://www.inkfilms.com/films/animation-mixtape https://www.austinfilm.org/screening/animation-mixtape/ http://www.bitterfilms.com/ |
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