The Periwig-maker is a short animation film by German director, Steffen Schaeffer about the great Bubonic plague that killed over 100,000 people in London in 1665. Produced in 1999, it timing was prescient, coming just a year before Covid-19 swept across the whole world.

The film tells the story of a London wig maker who seals himself off the rest of the city to avoid infection. Locked in his shop, he observes the sufferings and shrouded bodies being carted away and writes about them in his journal. From his window, he sees a young girl who lives in the tavern across the way that gets progressively sicker. When she dies, the wigmaker goes to the mass grave where she’s buried and cuts off her luxurious red hair and makes himself a wig from it. Before long, he, too, succumb to the plague and dies.

The film, which won a string of awards, yo the 2000 Best Short Film: 26th Seattle International Film Festival award, is layered with philosophical reflections about two ways of living. As the film’s creator explains, “You can risk your life and live before you die, or you can prevent yourself from risking anything and live the life of a dead person.”

Some scenes from the film

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“The Periwig Maker” (1999), with voice-over narrated by the eminent British actor, Kenneth Branagh.