Driessen Paul

Animator, Artist, Author, Cartoonist, Comic Strip Artist, Director

30/03/1940

Nijmegen, Netherlands

• National Film Board of Canada

Biography

Paul Driessen is a Dutch animator, director, and author who is known for his work on the Beatles’ The Yellow Submarine (1968) and his career-long partnership with the National Film Board of Canada. (Mitchell, 2015)

Family and early life

Driessen was born on March 30, 1940, in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Due to World War II, then political turmoil in the post-war years, he spent much of his childhood moving around the Netherlands and Russia due to his parent’s work in diplomacy. However, in 1950 he and his family permanently moved back to the Netherlands, settling in Rotterdam. (Driessen, 2024)

In his youth, Driessen traveled around the Netherlands, Paris, and the UK as part of his military service. During this time, he would begin to draw one panel cartoons, and decided he wanted to build a career as a cartoonist. (Driessen, 2024)

Career outline

Drissen began his formal career as a comic artist and animator for a small Dutch studio Cinecentre in 1964. There he learned how to animate under the mentorship of the American animator Jim Hiltz. However, Driessen only worked for a short period at Cinecenter, as Hiltz returned to America and the studio collapsed. (Vollenbrock, 2015)

His first substantial work was on George Canning’s film for The Beatles, The Yellow Submarine (1964). Driessen was an animator on the project and used the experience to develop his animation skills. (Driessen, 2024,)

After finishing his work on The Yellow Submarine, Driessen moved to Canada in the early 1970s, with aspirations to work with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). While he initially sought to work with the English-language animation department at the NFB, he found work at its French-language animation studio in Montreal. (Mitchell, 2015) In his early years at the NFB, he worked with some of the most famous animators to come out of the studio, including Norman McLaren, Co Hoedeman, and Caroline Leaf. (Vollenbrock, 2015) During this time he produced a series of short films including Air! (1972), Le Bleu Perdu (1972), and Cat’s Cradle (1974). (NFB)

Though the bulk of his career was spent working with the NFB, Driessen would often alternate between making films in Canada and in the Netherlands, depending on where he could receive funding for his projects. (Mitchell, 2015) In the Netherlands, he would make some of his most acclaimed short films, such as The Killing of An Egg/Ei Om Zeep (1977) and the Oscar-nominated film 3 Misses (1998).

Driessen continues to work both in the Netherlands and Canada. In 2024, he released an autobiography titled My Life in Cartoons, which explores his animation career and creative processes.

Personal style

Driessen is known for creating short films, as has said he does not enjoy creating feature-length animations. (Vollenbrock, 2015) He also uses the hand-drawn animation style that he has retained throughout his career, preferring to animate by using physical rather than digital technology. (Mitchell, 2015)

Honors and awards

• Distinguished Contribution to the Art of Animation – Annie Awards (1987)
• Lifetime Achievement Award – Zagreb Film Festival (2002)
• Dragon of Dragons Honorary Award – Krakow Film Festival (2013)

Filmography

References:

Driessen, Paul. My Life in Cartoons At Bay Press, 2024.

Mitchell, Ben. “An Interview with Animation Director Paul Driessen” Skwigly, 01, Oct. 2015 https://www.skwigly.co.uk/paul-driessen/ Accessed 29 Mar, 2026.

“Paul Driessen” National Film Board, https://www.nfb.ca/directors/paul-driessen/?language=en Accessed 29. Mar. 2026.

Vollenbroek, Tunde. “Q&A: ‘I Don’t Look Back.” Cartoon Brew 03. Mar, 2015 https://www.cartoonbrew.com/shorts/paul-driessen-qa-i-dont-look-back-110779.htmlAccessed 19 Mar, 2026.