A master of stop-motion animation, Dutch-born filmmaker Co Hoedeman (1940–2025) first came to Canada in 1965 at the age of 25, moving from Amsterdam to Montreal after seeing the films of Norman McLaren. Director of 20 NFB classic films, Co received the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for his 1977 short The Sand Castle. A devoted father and grandfather, he was the creator of the beloved children’s series Four Seasons in the Life of Ludovic. Experimenting with an astounding range of techniques, Hoedeman conjured up fantastic worlds, finding inspiration in Inuit traditional stories, humanitarian themes and his vivid imagination.