Selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick, starting November 10
November 9, 2026, Montreal, National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Matea Radic’s multi-award-winning National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short Paradaïz is being featured as a Staff Pick on Vimeo, starting November 10.
Now available to stream free of charge on NFB platforms, including the NFB’s YouTube channel, Paradaïz is an autobiographical work by Sarajevo-born, Winnipeg-based artist Matea Radic. Blending dark humour, nostalgia and absurdist animation, Radic intertwines archival images and her own slippery childhood memories in a search for a forgotten Paradaïz.
The film has been selected by more than 63 festivals worldwide and garnered 12 honours to date, including a Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig’s International Competition Short Animated Film and Best Animated Short Film at the Warsaw Film Festival—both qualifying festivals for the 99th Academy Awards.
Paradaïz is available on NFB platforms worldwide, except in France and Germany (where the film is available via ARTE), as well as Hungary and Lithuania.
Quotes
“The curation team is honored to feature Matea Radic’s Paradaïz in the Vimeo Staff Picks channel. Radic pairs a playful, elastic animation style with archival footage and fragments of her own childhood recollections to create a film where grief and absurdist humor sit side by side. Though Paradaïz is a portrait of home in a city shaped by siege, its warmth makes it a moving watch for all audiences.”
– Vimeo
“Paradaïz is the journey of returning back to my younger self and setting her free. Of unearthing old wounds to let them heal. And through the process of writing and animating this film, I did just that. I learned that home is when you recognize yourself—and that no matter how well you’ve hidden yourself, you can always reemerge.”
– Matea Radic, filmmaker
Awards to date for Paradaïz
- Golden Dove, International Competition Short Animated Film, DOK Leipzig, Germany (2025)
- Best Animated Short Film, Warsaw Film Festival, Poland (2025)
- Golden Horseman Animated Film, International Competition, Filmfest Dresden International Short Film Festival, Germany (2026)
- Guy L. Coté Grand Prize for Best Animated Film, Sommets du cinéma d’animation, Montreal, Canada (2026)
- Best International AniDoc, Sevil International Women’s Documentary Film Festival, Azerbaijan (2026)
- Sabine & Nicolai Sawczynski Audience Award, Tricky Women/Tricky Realities Animation Festival, Vienna, Austria (2026)
- Best Animation Award, Brooklyn Film Festival, New York, USA (2026)
- Best Balkan Animation Award, Anibar International Animation Festival, Peja, Kosovo (2026)
- Special Mention International Jury, Fantoche International Animation Film Festival, Switzerland (2025)
- Jury Special Mention Award, GIRAF Festival of Independent Animation, Canada (2025)
- Special mention – Animation competition, Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF), Guanajuato, Mexico (2026)
- Special mention – International competition, Animest International Animation Film Festival, Bucharest, Romania (2026)
More about Paradaïz by Matea Radic (9 min 28)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/Paradaïz
- Welcome to a place where the houses have holes, tomatoes are ticking time bombs and snails wander the streets in search of a safe space.
- In her short-film debut, Matea Radic uses hand-drawn animation, family photos, a wry sense of humour and her own slippery memories to subvert expectations about what healing looks like—engaging in a surreal game of hide-and-seek with her surroundings.
- Paradaïz is produced for the NFB by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member Jelena Popović.
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