Montreal filmmakers win big at the Oscars with animated short The Girl who Cried Pearls

A small Montreal-made film has just won big, taking home one of the film industry’s highest honours.

The Girl Who Cried Pearls, by filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, won the Oscar for best animated short film at this year’s Academy Awards.

The 17-minute stop-motion film tells the story of a young, impoverished boy and a girl, whose tears turn into pearls. The fable explores themes of love, greed and the consequences of exploiting someone’s suffering.

During their acceptance speech, Lavis and Szczerbowski started by thanking their families for their support.

“I guess people think it takes patience to take five years to make a puppet film,” Lavis quipped.

“It actually takes patience to live with someone who takes five years to make a puppet film.”

The animation duo went on to thank the community that helped bring the movie to life, including the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), the show’s producers and other “wonderful collaborators,” mentioning Brigitte Henry, Patrick Watson, Colm Feore and James Heinemann.

Szczerbowski also managed to fit in a special shoutout, that no doubt struck a chord with viewers back home.

“And to get off quick, we just really want to thank our amazing neighbourhood and the amazingly talented community of artists that we’ve had the superb luck to work with,” he said.

“Thank you, the fantastic city of Montreal. Thank you, Canada.”

In an interview shortly after his win, Szczerbowski recounted how his parents, with their two children in tow, had fled Poland decades ago in search of a better life in Canada.

The family made its escape in a “crappy Yugoslavian car,” with two suitcases, just two weeks before “the Russians came.”

“If they could see that the country they chose for us to live in is this happy with me, it would have moved me to tears. If my mother were to know this, it would move her to tears,” he told The Canadian Press by phone.

The sense of place is also prominent in the film itself, with Montreal taking centre stage.

Shortly before the film showed at the Toronto International Film Festival, Lavis told CBC’s Dionne Codrington how the city itself shaped the storytelling.

“In the general sense, I think it’s very much a love letter to Montreal,” he said, adding a good portion of the story takes place in the city in and around 1912-13.

While the actual film was five years in the making, it was a moment several years before that a seed was planted.

Szczerbowski recalled how they had been shooting a scene with an actress who had been asked to cry.

It was only when they stopped filming that they realized the cheap pearl necklace they had made for her costume had broken.

“We’re looking at the girl who is pouring tears out her eyes and where they would land, there was a puddle of pearls,” Szczerbowski said.

“I think it took eight years before we figured out what to do with it.”

‘It takes a community’

Producer Christine Noël, who spoke to Radio-Canada from Los Angeles, underscored how the award belongs to the entire creative community.

“It’s an absolutely indescribable feeling of happiness and pride because there are so many people behind this victory,” she said. “It takes a community to make a film.”

Noël hopes the win will encourage more people to discover the film, and the animation talent coming out of Montreal.

The short was produced by the NFB, which brought home its 12th Oscar win, adding to its long list of accolades.

While it was the first Oscar win for Lavis and Szczerbowski, the pair was previously nominated for the 2007 short, Madame Tutli-Putli.

It was that film that sparked what the NFB, in a news release, described as “a stellar 20-year collaboration.”

In Canada, The Girl Who Cried Pearls is available for free on NFB.ca, YouTube and all NFB apps.