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Puddle Man

A twelve-year-old evacuee uncovers myth and memory on Dartmoor in this powerful short film voiced by Noel Fielding.

Toby is a twelve-year-old boy who is evacuated to Dartmoor in the midst of the Second World War. With new fears looming over him, Toby discovers his grandmother Julie’s dark past and a mysterious figure who wanders the moorland.

  • Jacob Joseph Held
    Director
  • Jacob Joseph Held
    Writer
  • India Pluves
    Producer
  • Jacob Joseph Held
    Producer
  • Dainton Anderson
    Key Cast
    "Toby Hutton"
  • Sara Wilson-Soppitt
    Key Cast
    "Julie Hutton"
  • Leon Drago
    Key Cast
    "Puddle Man"
  • Noel Fielding
    Key Cast
    "Voice of the Puddle Man"
  • Alfie Dickens
    Director of Photography
  • Veronica Manuel
    Composer
  • Jacob Joseph Held
    Editor
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    August 5, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    2,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    4K Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - University of Bristol
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Jacob Joseph Held

Jacob Joseph Held is a filmmaker from London and is the creator of multiple short films which have been screened in festivals across the UK. Jacob’s films focus on themes of boyhood, magical realism and loss. Jacob is currently studying Philosophy at University of Bristol whilst pursuing filmmaking as a career.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Puddle Man is a story about fear - the kind of fear that twists reality and makes us believe strange things. Mixing history, magical realism, and mystery Puddle man unfolds in a powerful thirteen-minute drama.

When I was eighteen, I had cancer. For years afterward, I lived with the constant fear that it would return. That fear was made sharper by the fact that, three years before my diagnosis, my dad had died from cancer. Over time, my anxiety began to take on unusual forms - I found comfort in imagining that there might be magic in the world, something powerful enough to make my illness vanish.

This experience inspired me to explore the idea that fears can create strange beliefs - and that sometimes, those beliefs might hold a kind of truth. From that came Toby, a boy terrified his father would die, and the Puddle Man, a mystical figure who roams the moors collecting people’s tears. Then came Julie, a woman trapped in the grief of losing her husband, and had once refused the Puddle Man’s help.

I’ve always been fascinated by the 1940s, so I set the story in Britain during the war. In this setting, Toby’s fear became that his father would die in battle, while Julie’s husband had died in the First World War. By weaving their stories together in a mysterious, dreamlike world, I wanted to capture the strange and unsettling ways that deep fear can shape our reality.