Oscar-winning stop-motion filmmaker devoted his life to storytelling

Canadian animator Jacobus (Co) Hoedeman almost didn’t make the short film that won him an Oscar at the 1978 Academy Awards ceremony.As a full-time animator at the National Film Board, Mr. Hoedeman needed the approval of a committee of NFB filmmakers before starting work on his 13-minute stop-motion animated film The Sand Castle. According to his 2021 autobiography Frame by Frame: An Animator’s Journey, his whimsical story idea initially received only lukewarm support but after much debate “the project was accepted, and I would happily play with sand for the next year or so.”