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The New Yorker Studios presents The Flying Sailor. Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis’s award-winning NFB animated short The Flying Sailor now streaming on The New Yorker’s digital channels.

PRESS RELEASE
18/11/2022

November 18, 2022 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada

The award-winning animated short film The Flying Sailor is available on The New Yorker’s digital channels today, November 18, as part of the magazine’s award-winning Screening Room series. A National Film Board of Canada (NFB) production, the film is the latest work by the Oscar-nominated and Palme d’Or-winning duo of Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby. Inspired by the incredible true-life story of a man blown two kilometres through the air by the 1917 Halifax Explosion—the largest accidental non-nuclear explosion in history—The Flying Sailor is an exhilarating meditation on the wonder and fragility of being.

Forbis and Tilby are Calgary-based animators who have shared Best Animated Short Film Academy Award nominations for When the Day Breaks (1999) and Wild Life (2011), with Tilby also nominated individually for Strings (1991). The NFB has a long and distinguished history at the Oscars, with NFB productions and co-productions garnering more Academy Award nominations than any other film organization based outside of Hollywood.

The Flying Sailor debuts on The New Yorker’s digital channels after a world premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, a North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and a U.S. festival premiere at the New York City Short Film Festival, where it received the award for Best Animation.

The film is the latest NFB animated short to be published by The New Yorker, following Joanna Quinn and Les Mills’ acclaimed 2021 Beryl Productions International–NFB co-production Affairs of the Art, last year. The New Yorker’s award-winning Screening Room series is a collection of fictional films that will make you laugh, cry, and challenge your view of the mundane and the extraordinary.

Watch The Flying Sailor now for free:

Awards

With more than 20 festival selections to date, The Flying Sailor has already won six awards:

  • Best Narrative Film, Countryside Animafest Cyprus, Cyprus
  • Audience Award for being one of the 10 favourite foreign films, São Paulo International Short Film Festival, Brazil
  • Canadian Film Institute Award for Best Canadian Animation, Ottawa International Animation Film Festival, Canada
  • Best Animated Short, Calgary International Film Festival, Canada
  • Silver Award for Best Canadian Short Film, Toronto After Dark Film Festival, Canada
  • Best Animation, New York City Short Film Festival, United States

More about The Flying Sailor (7 min 45 s)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/the-flying-sailor

  • The film employs a wealth of techniques and media (3D, 2D, live action, photographs) along with a bold mix of comedy, suspense, philosophy and playful abstraction.
  • The film was produced and executive-produced by David Christensen for the NFB’s North West Studio in Edmonton, Alberta.

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Media Relations

Nadine Viau, NFB Publicist, 514-458-9745, n.viau@nfb.ca
Natalie Raabe, The New Yorker, natalie_raabe@newyorker.com
Ella Murdock Gardner, The New Yorker, ella_murdockgardner@newyorker.com
Jahan Rifai, The New Yorker, jahan_rifai@newyorker.com

French version here | Version en français ici.

  • About the NFB

    The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is a leader in exploring animation as an artform, a storytelling medium and innovative content for emerging platforms. It produces trailblazing animated works both in its Montreal studios and across  the country, and it works with many of the world’s leading creators on international co-productions. NFB productions have won more than 7,000 awards, including seven Oscars for NFB animation and seven grand prizes at the Annecy festival. To access this unique content, visit NFB.ca.