Montreal duo's haunting stop-motion fable goes global on NFB.ca

MONTREAL, March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is bringing Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's Oscar-winning stop-motion fable The Girl Who Cried Pearls to viewers around the world.

Named Best Animated Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards, the English-language version of this haunting Montreal-set and produced short--narrated by Colm Feore--is now streaming for free on NFB.ca and all NFB apps, available worldwide (*excluding France and its overseas territories, Germany, Spain and Andorra).

Quick facts

The Girl Who Cried Pearls by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (17 min 37 s)
Produced by Julie Roy, Marc Bertrand and Christine Noël
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/the-girl-who-cried-pearls

A celebration of the magic of stop-motion animation, The Girl Who Cried Pearls is a meticulously crafted fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds.
This was the second trip down the red carpet for the acclaimed Montreal animation duo, who captured global attention with their 2007 short film, Madame Tutli-Putli, which earned them their first Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short and kicked off a stellar 20-year collaboration with the NFB.
The film features a star-studded creative team, including a film score by Patrick Watson 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.

NFB and the Oscars
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/oscars

NFB productions and co-productions have received 12 Oscars and 79 nominations.
The NFB received an Honorary Academy Award for "overall excellence in cinema" in recognition of its 50th anniversary in 1989.

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