ONE WEEK ABOUT Kaboom Animation Festival
The annual Kaboom Animation Festival – from 13 to 22 March in Utrecht, Amsterdam and online – presents the latest, most creative, innovative and daring national and international animation productions with the theme ‘Human Touch’. Over the coming days, we will be showcasing a number of the Dutch participants, today Janneke Swinkels & Tim Frijsinger.
Zwermen
Piet, a quiet resident in a nursing home, starts to experience peculiar changes: feathers sprout in his hair, an unfamiliar lightness in his limbs and his words gradually turn into soft chirps and whistles. Though life around him remains unchanged, Piet senses a profound shift within. While his community still embraces him, he feels it may be time to join a new flock.
Director’s statement
With Zwermen (Murmuration), we aim to offer an intimate, almost documentary-like glimpse into daily life in a nursing home. The story unfolds at an unhurried pace, in line with the rhythm of life there. Some residents are content, moving along with the flow, while others, like our protagonist Piet, seek their own path and try to maintain their independence.
Over the course of the film, Piet gradually transforms into a bird. This physical change introduces a magical-realist element that can be interpreted in different ways: is he truly transforming, or are his struggles simply signs of age and decline?
For Piet, the change is no cause for concern; just as every other elderly person no longer marvels at wrinkles or grey hair, he accepts it as a natural development. This ambiguity leaves room for the viewer to interpret the story in their own way. We play with stereotypes and audience expectations, inviting reflection and reconsideration.
For us, there is no single explanation for the events in the film. We neither confirm nor deny that Piet turns into a bird, nor do we frame it as a purely psychological penomenon. Instead, the film presents a series of interconnected moments, each marking Piet’s development toward the final scene in the forest. Here, he fully embraces his new existence, joining the other birds in flight. The quiet, open final scene – Piet’s empty room with an open window and feathers on the windowsill – suggests a sense of acceptance. To us, it’s a positive ending.
We chose stop-motion animation for this film because it allows us to physically grasp the characters and objects, creating a tangible world that viewers can almost step into. Compared to a more stylized, hand-drawn approach, stop-motion fosters a closer connection to the characters and their surroundings. In our view, it also enhances the documentary-like nature of the film.
