Seventeen Minutes of Stop-Motion Magic
The Girl Who Cried Pearls won Best Animated Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards. The 17-minute stop-motion film, directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, was produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
The Film
Set in Montreal, the film tells the story of a young, impoverished boy who meets and falls in love with a girl who secretly weeps pearls at night. The fable explores themes of love, greed, and the consequences of exploiting someone's suffering. It premiered at the 2025 Annecy International Animation Film Festival and won Best Canadian Short Film at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
Stop-Motion's Oscar Track Record
Stop-motion animation has a strong history in the Animated Short category. The medium's tactile, handcrafted quality resonates with animation branch voters who appreciate technical artistry and patience. Each frame of a stop-motion film requires physical manipulation, making a 17-minute short an extraordinary labor of love.
The Acceptance Speech
Lavis and Szczerbowski kept it simple. Their speech consisted of two words: "To Canada." This is the kind of brevity the Academy orchestra never had to play off.
Data Verdict
Animated short films are nearly impossible to predict by data. The category has no box office component, limited critical aggregation, and tiny audience pools. Festival pedigree (Annecy premiere, TIFF win) is the strongest available signal, and The Girl Who Cried Pearls had impeccable festival credentials. NFB of Canada productions have historically performed well at the Oscars, adding institutional credibility to the data case.