Animation For Adults: The Afa Podcast

Evan Vernon interviews Jacky de Groen, director of SPERMACETI. Jacky De Groen (1992) is an animation artist based in Ghent, Belgium. His colorfully painted and atmospheric films DIEPERIK (2013) and ECLIPSE (2014) have been shown at film festivals internationally. After graduating from KASK |School of Arts in 2014, he worked at animation studio Film Bilder in Stuttgart for some time. In 2016 he was invited as Animation Artist in Residence in Tokyo by JAPIC. SPERMACETI (2018) is Jacky's first professional film. SPERMACETI was recently selected as a Winner in the Animation Nights New York 5th ANNY Best of Fest in 2021. SPERMACETI Sailors kill time under a blistering sun, awaiting a sign of their prey. A young mind turns inwards as it traces the wood grain. After bloodshed, a strong arm offers a moment of shelter. A boy gets his first tattoo. Spermaceti evokes the transitional space-time of a young man who finds himself on the threshold of an initiation. As we fluctuate between the underwater and the above, bound