Oscars shortlist for Best Animated Short Film includes National Film Board of Canada fable The Girl Who Cried Pearls by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
PRESS RELEASE
16/12/2025
December 16, 2025 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) stop-motion animated fable The Girl Who Cried Pearls by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski is among 15 films shortlisted for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 98th Oscars.
The Montreal duo first captured global attention with their 2007 NFB short Madame Tutli-Putli, which garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short and received 45 awards and honours.
Winner of the Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF, The Girl Who Cried Pearls features a star-studded creative team, including Colm Feore (voice), Patrick Watson (music) and Brigitte Henry as artistic director. Sound design is by Olivier Calvert, who was on Sylvain Bellemare’s team for the Denis Villeneuve film Arrival, winner of the 2017 Oscar for Sound Editing.
The Girl Who Cried Pearls is available on NFB.ca, YouTube and all NFB apps in Canada.
About the film
The Girl Who Cried Pearls, by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (17 min 28 s)
Producers: Julie Roy, Marc Bertrand and Christine Noël
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/the-girl-who-cried-pearls
- Set in Montreal at the dawn of the 20th century, The Girl Who Cried Pearls is a haunting fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds. This meticulously crafted film is a celebration of the magic of stop-motion animation, and a timeless parable of desire, deception and the price of innocence.
- Since its debut in June 2025 at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it was featured as an opening film and in official competition, The Girl Who Cried Pearls has screened at more than 30 festivals and won 9 awards and mentions.
- It’s Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s sixth collaboration with the NFB—a stellar run of animation excellence spanning two decades.
Key honours and awards
- Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF;
- Canadian Film Institute Award for Best Canadian Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival;
- Benshi Prize – Short Films in Official Competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival;
- Maribor Audience Grand Prix – Stop-Motion Animation at the StopTrik International Film Festival in Slovenia;
- Special Jury Mention for Best Quebec Short Film at the Quebec City Film Festival;
- Special Mention – Short Film at the Taichung International Animation Festival in Taiwan.
About the filmmakers
NFB at the Oscars
- To date, NFB productions and co-productions have garnered 78 Academy Award nominations and 11 Oscars.
- The NFB also received a 1988 Honorary Academy Award for overall excellence in cinema.
- For more information, visit: nfb.ca/oscars.
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Version française ici.
Media Relations
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About the NFB
For more than 80 years, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has produced, distributed and preserved those stories, which now form a vast audiovisual collection—an important part of our cultural heritage that represents all Canadians.
To tell these stories, the NFB works with filmmakers of all ages and backgrounds, from across the country. It harnesses their creativity to produce relevant and groundbreaking content for curious, engaged and diverse audiences. The NFB also collaborates with industry experts to foster innovation in every aspect of storytelling, from formats to distribution models.
Every year, another 50 or so powerful new animated and documentary films are added to the NFB’s extensive collection of more than 14,000 titles, half of which are available to watch for free on nfb.ca.
Through its mandate, its stature and its productions, the NFB contributes to Canada’s cultural identity and is helping to build the Canada of tomorrow.