Jonas Geirnaert

Who is Jonas Geirnaert?

Jonas Geirnaert studied animation at the KASK in Ghent. In May 2004 he won the Short Film Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with his animated short Flatlife. Of the copy he sent in for selection only the first minute had sound. This is because this was his graduation project, and it wasn't completely finished at the final date for selection entries.

Although Flatlife has no political message, Jonas' previous movie, The All-American Alphabet, clearly has one. On stage in Cannes, Jonas had a message for all Americans: "Don't vote Bush". At that moment such statements were very popular, however his political preference has to be situated in the extreme-left corner as he is a militant for the marxist extreme-left party Workers Party of Belgium, a small political formation in Belgium.

In the fall of 2005 Geirnaert made the TV comedy series Neveneffecten for Canvas with his fellow comedians Lieven Scheire, Koen De Poorter and Jelle De Beule. In 2011 this same group of four made the television show BASTA which also offered satirical critique on current cultural phenomenon, like help desks, uncritical journalism, television call games, the production of meat and internet scammers.