A young man named Pubert Jimbob enjoys a cosy evening at home before being visited by a stranger who throws him a lighter. Everything gets weirder then, in a chain of events involving a foot chase, a car crash and an encounter with Nadine… a lump with a mouth. What’s going on?

With shades of David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), this deliciously weird animation film displays a 3D-and-rotoscoped world with strange volumes and tilted angles. Belgian director Dees sums up his film as a compression of “strange, silly, unnerving, unsettling, maybe funny, repulsive, disgusting, goofy and disturbing ideas”. It works really well and the RIGA IFF Short Film Selection Committee can state that it related a lot to its lesson, “to the comfiness of a couch compared to the craziness of the outside world”. Inspired by Japanese surreal and absurd cinema, Pubert Jimbob won the award in graduation films competition at the prestigious Annecy International Animation Film Festival in 2024.  

Jury statement: When the world seems out of whack and weirdness is your new now, let this film become your source of healing fantasy, funk and fun. This profoundly unique graduation film shows us the kaleidoscopic power of animation at its strangest and best. More please!