{"id":540027,"date":"2026-03-16T11:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/540027\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T11:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T11:47:11","slug":"the-fantastic-city-of-montreal-gets-an-oscar-moment-as-the-girl-who-cried-pearls-wins-for-animated-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/540027\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The fantastic city of Montreal’ gets an Oscar moment as The Girl Who Cried Pearls wins for animated short"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montreal got an Oscar shout-out on Sunday as Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski won the Academy Award<\/a> for best animated short film for The Girl Who Cried Pearls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just really want to thank our amazing neighbourhood and the amazingly talented community of artists that we\u2019ve had the superb luck to work with,\u201d Szczerbowski said in his acceptance speech. \u201cThank you to the fantastic city of Montreal. Thank you, Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada!\u201d Lavis chimed in.<\/p>\n

The film, which uses stop-motion animation, includes a twinkling instrumental score by the filmmakers\u2019 longtime friend and collaborator Patrick Watson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It tells the story of a destitute boy living in the streets of St-Henri in early 20th-century Montreal. He is offered a way out when he encounters a down-on-her-luck girl who weeps pearls of sorrow at night.<\/p>\n

Watson assembled an orchestra of musicians including Arcade Fire\u2019s Richard Reed Parry on upright bass, Godspeed You! Black Emperor\u2019s Sophie Trudeau on violin, Brad Barr on guitar and Rebecca Foon on cello.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess we wanted to repay a cultural debt to the city we live in, to use all the nourishment we\u2019ve got from the sickeningly amazing art scene around us,\u201d Szczerbowski told The Gazette in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also reached deep into the well of history and art,\u201d Lavis added. \u201cThere are elements of our love of Mordecai Richler<\/a> and Gabrielle Roy<\/a> in this, even though it\u2019s an original story. We wanted to add to that continuum of fables about Montreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavis and Szczerbowski were nominated for an Oscar in 2008 with their NFB animated short Madame Tutli-Putli.<\/p>\n

On stage Sunday, Szczerbowski also thanked \u201cthe National Film Board, our amazing producers Julie Roy, Marc Bertrand and Christine No\u00ebl and our wonderful collaborators Brigitte Henry, Patrick Watson, Colm Feore and James Hyndman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavis spoke first, saying: \u201cOh boy, we really are nervous. People think it takes patience to take five years to make a puppet film. It actually takes patience to live with someone who takes five years to make a puppet film.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then thanked his wife and daughter, and Szczerbowski thanked his.<\/p>\n

The Girl Who Cried Pearls can be viewed for free at nfb.ca<\/a> and on the NFB\u2019s YouTube page.<\/p>\n

Praise for the film\u2019s Oscar victory was swift online, with Montreal\u2019s mayor, Quebec\u2019s premier and the federal minister of Canadian identity and culture among those offering congratulations.<\/p>\n

tdunlevy@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal got an Oscar shout-out on Sunday as Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski won the Academy Award for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[210943,49,48,210941,142167,119791,2338,210942],"class_list":["post-540027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-best-animated-short-film","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chris-lavis","tag-dolby-theatre","tag-mike-coppola","tag-montreal","tag-patrick-watson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}