{"id":556660,"date":"2026-03-24T03:45:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556660\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T03:45:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:45:30","slug":"from-montreal-studio-to-oscar-stage-local-filmmakers-win-for-the-girl-who-cried-pearls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556660\/","title":{"rendered":"From Montreal studio to Oscar stage, local filmmakers win for ‘The Girl Who Cried Pearls’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montreal animators Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, both Concordia University graduates, won an Oscar just over a week ago for their stop-motion short The Girl Who Cried Pearls. <\/p>\n

The 17-minute Canadian film tells the story of a boy in early 20th-century Montreal who falls for a mysterious girl who cries pearls at night.<\/p>\n

Lavis says the win highlights the importance of public support for Canadian arts and admits the moment still hasn\u2019t quite sunk in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels already like a dream I had where I went to Los Angeles and we won an Oscar,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Maciek Szczerbowski, left, and Chris Lavis accept the award for animated short film for \u201cThe Girl Who Cried Pearls\u201d during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo\/Chris Pizzello)<\/p>\n

He recalled taking the Oscar back to his local cafe and pub in Montreal to celebrate with friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to our local cafe and our local pub to visit friends with the Oscar in hand. It\u2019s just this wonderful communal experience of bringing that home,\u201d Lavis said.<\/p>\n

The win marks the pair\u2019s first Oscar, following a previous nomination in 2007 for Madame Tutli-Putli.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember we had this idea of a girl who is crying pearls of sorrow. And then this boy staring at her\u2026 this kind of collision of ideas just started to fill out a story,\u201d Lavis said.<\/p>\n

The short took five years to make, built frame by frame in a small Montreal studio Lavis describes as a cave, with natural light blocked to create precise conditions for stop-motion animation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s notoriously painstaking. It takes as long as you think it takes to make these films, one frame at a time, maybe two seconds a day. And that\u2019s if the puppet doesn\u2019t break\u2026 and they break a lot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A character opens a gift in an undated still frame handout image from the film \u201cLa jeune fille qui pleurait des perles,\u201d or \u201cThe Girl Who Cried Pearls.\u201d THE CANADIAN PRESS \u2013 National Film Board of Canada<\/p>\n

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, the project has screened at more than 40 festivals and won multiple awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t put a price on that. That\u2019s like a sports team winning,\u201d Lavis said. \u201cNot all culture is measured by box office. Sometimes it\u2019s just having these moments where we can all celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back home, Lavis recalled visiting his local cafe where some staff were Concordia animation students, a moment he hopes inspires the next generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing, they all took pictures with the Oscar. Maybe that motivates them to be up there on the stage themselves one day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lavis says their next project is already underway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all too ready to start building puppets again, turn the lights on, get back in the cave and spend another few years making this kind of sorcery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal animators Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, both Concordia University graduates, won an Oscar just over a week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-556660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556660","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=556660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}