Civilization’s End Has Never Been More Fun Than In Jorn Leeuwerink’s Ecological Allegory ‘Pig’

Jorn Leeuwerink’s short film Pig, Varken in its native Dutch, is available online now after screening in competition at dozens of festivals around the world over the past year.

I first saw Pig when I was on the jury at last year’s Weird Market in Valencia, Spain. The other judges and I picked the short as the top European short in competition there, and after seeing the film again today, I stand by that decision.

Pig is a well-crafted allegory about the dangers of over-consumption, but never feels preachy or heavy-handed. In the film, an increasingly modern animal society powers its abundance of electric devices from a cord plugged into the nose of one giant pig. Up to this point, the short could be a silly film to make kids laugh, the gags certainly land.

As the animals blissfully motor their way through life though, indications pop up that their power source is running thin. Unwilling to accept the truth of the situation, society is unprepared and begins to crumble after the power runs out and things quickly get desperate, and violent.

The film’s 2d storybook-like anthropomorphic animal drawings are fun and funny. Their facial expressions are especially impressive and necessary, as there is no dialogue in the eight-minute short. That’s not a problem though, as Leeuwerink has great comedic timing and the film’s pacing feels spot-on.

Leeuwerink and his team used TVPaint, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, and Adobe Animate to animate the film. The backgrounds were drawn and painted on paper by artist Janneke Ipenburg.