January 9, 2026 - Vancouver - National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
Festivalgoers at the 2026 Victoria Film Festival (Feb. 6-15) will be treated to a showcase of great Canadian animation featuring four National Film Board of Canada (NFB) shorts-including the WORLD PREMIERE of Toronto filmmaker Bahij Jaroudi's Bisou sauvage.
The other three acclaimed NFB shorts screening at the festival have garnered awards in Canada and abroad: Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski's The Girl Who Cried Pearls, Matea Radic's Paradaz and Alex Boya's Bread Will Walk.
Quick facts
Bisou sauvage by Bahij Jaroudi (2 min 50 s) - WORLD PREMIERE
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/bisou-sauvage
- As world tragedies pile up, a bored couple is looking for their next distraction. This explosive dark comedy is a blunt take on the privilege of boredom and the dissonance that is needed to pretend everything is okay. Lebanese-Canadian illustrator and animator Bahij Jaroudi compels us to recognize our own apathy in this relatable black-and-white animated short.
- Born in 1981 in Lebanon and recently relocated to Toronto, this award-winning illustrator and animation filmmaker has collaborated with major clients like Netflix, Cartoon Network Arabia and The New York Times. After earning an MA in Animation from Kingston University (UK), he built a prolific career spanning animated ads, short films and children's books, and has taught animation at the Lebanese American University.
The Girl Who Cried Pearls by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (17 min 28 s)
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.
- The film features a star-studded creative team, including Colm Feore (voice) and Patrick Watson (music). 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.
- The Girl Who Cried Pearls is one of 15 films shortlisted for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film, with nominations to be announced on January 22. The film has won over 10 awards and mentions to date and was named to Canada's Top Ten by the Toronto International Film Festival.
Paradaz by Matea Radic (9 min 28 s)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/paradaiz
- Welcome to a place where the houses have holes, tomatoes are ticking time bombs and snails wander the streets in search of a safe space.
- Winner of four awards and honours to date, including the Golden Dove - International Competition Short Animated Film at DOK Leipzig in Germany, Best Animated Short Film at the Warsaw Film Festival and a Jury Special Mention Award at Calgary's GIRAF Festival of Independent Animation.
- In her short-film debut, Winnipeg-based Matea Radic uses absurdist animation, family photos, a wry sense of humour and her own slippery memories to return to the war-torn city of Sarajevo she fled as a child in the '90s.
Bread Will Walk by Alex Boya (11 min 18 s)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/bread-will-walk
- A devoted sister races to save her brother, a bread-turned zombie. A mob of hungry living pursues, mouths agape. Streets twist into mazes, reason crumbles. Can love defy appetite?
- Montreal-born actor Jay Baruchel voices all the characters in the original English version of this frenetic, surrealist satire of our dehumanizing society, designed as a continuous shot.
- The film premiered in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes and later won the International Experimental Short Award at the Los Angeles Animation Festival.
- Bread Will Walk marks the third NFB film from the Bulgarian-born Montreal-based animator and filmmaker, known for his surreal, hand-drawn storytelling.
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Curator's perspective | Director's notes
