North American premiere of Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s NFB short fable The Girl Who Cried Pearls at TIFF. A heart-wrenching choice between love and greed—and a testament to the magic of stop-motion.

August 7, 2025 – Toronto – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

The 50th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will present the North American debut of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short The Girl Who Cried Pearls—the latest stop-motion marvel by the Montreal animation duo of Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, Oscar nominees for their acclaimed short Madame Tutli-Putli.

Screening in the festival’s Short Cuts section, The Girl Who Cried Pearls is a timeless parable of desire, deception and the price of innocence. This meticulously crafted film features handmade puppets, mesmerizing narration by distinguished stage and screen actor Colm Feore and a haunting score by Polaris Music Prize winner Patrick Watson.

Also, as previously announced, Min Sook Lee’s Toronto-produced NFB feature doc There Are No Words will be having its world premiere at TIFF.

The Girl Who Cried Pearls (La jeune fille qui pleurait des perles) by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (NFB, 16 min)
Press kit: mediaspace.nfb.ca/epk/the-girl-who-cried-pearls

• The Girl Who Cried Pearls is a haunting fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds.
• At the dawn of the 20th century, a poor boy in Montreal falls in love with a girl whose sorrow turns into pearls. He sells them to a ruthless pawnbroker, who hungers for more. Tempted by greed, the boy must choose between love and fortune—and the choice could damn his soul.
• Along with the talents of Feore (voice) and Watson (music), The Girl Who Cried Pearls features sound design by Olivier Calvert,sound designer on the NFB Oscar-nominated shorts Affairs of the Art, Blind Vaysha and Animal Behaviour, and part of Sylvain Bellemare’s Oscar-winning team on Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival.
• The Girl Who Cried Pearls had its world premiere in Official Competition on the opening night of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
• The film is produced for the NFB by Julie Roy, Marc Bertrand and Christine Noël, with Brigitte Henry as artistic director.

More about Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

• Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (Clyde Henry Productions) are award-winning writers, directors and animators, whose work is rich in surreal detail, dark humour and evocative artistry, as they explore the mystery and strange beauty of life.
• Their first film, Madame Tutli-Putli (NFB, 2007), received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short along with 45 awards and mentions.
• Their acclaimed NFB credits also include Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life (NFB/Warner Brothers, 2019), a Maurice Sendak adaptation featuring Meryl Streep; art direction for Guy Maddin’s The Forbidden Room (Buffalo Gal Pictures/Phi/NFB, 2015), recognized with a Canadian Screen Award nomination; and the VR stop-motion work Gymnasia (Felix & Paul/NFB), winner of the Canadian Screen Award for Best Immersive Experience.
• Most recently, they collaborated with Montreal’s Compulsion Games and X-Box to direct a short stop-motion introduction to the game South of Midnight.
• Honoured this year with a special tribute at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Lavis and Szczerbowski were also celebrated with retrospectives at the Cinémathèque Québécoise in Montreal and the Annecy International Animation Festival in France in 2017.

– 30 –

Stay Connected

Online Screening Room: NFB.ca
NFB Facebook | NFB X | NFB Instagram | NFB Blog | NFB YouTube | NFB Vimeo
Curator’s perspective | Director’s notes

About the NFB