Fem små Gefiltes, Five Little Gefiltes

Plot:

Five Little Gefiltes is an animated adaptation of Dave Horowitz's picture book of the same name. The story follows five adventurous little gefiltes who disappear one by one, punctuated by their mother's increasingly desperate cry of "Oy Vey!", before finally returning home together.

Process:
As co-director and lead animator, I was interested in preserving the warmth and charm of Horowitz's illustrations while discovering how they could come alive through movement. The project began with storyboarding and an animatic, where we expanded the original book with additional visual moments to strengthen the cinematic narrative. I recreated the illustrations digitally in layered compositions using Procreate before animating them in TVPaint and After Effects. To give the traditionally illustrated environments a greater sense of space, I separated them into multiple depth layers, allowing for subtle camera movements that created the feeling of moving through an illustrated world rather than across a flat image.
Finding the rhythm between image, voice performance, and Alexander Freudenthal's original music score became a central part of the animation process, with timing and movement carefully shaped to support the storytelling.
The film premiered at the Malmö Film Festival in March 2026.

Techniques:
Sketches, Procreate, TVPaint, After Effects, Premiere Pro

Production Year:
2025–2026

Screenings:
Malmö Film Festival, March 2026
Jewish Film Festival, Malmö, April 2026
Sundsvall Film Festival, September 2026
Society of Illustrators, New York, October 2026