From lecture rooms inside Concordia College in Montreal to the largest stage in Hollywood – two graduates at the moment are Oscar winners.
The movie “The Woman Who Cried Pearls,” by Montrealers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, received the Academy Award for greatest animated quick.
For college kids learning movie at Concordia, it’s proof their goals might be the subsequent ones to develop into actuality.
“To have it get such excessive acclaim is de facto thrilling realizing the work I need to do could be acknowledged in that approach,” mentioned Anika Sorkilmo, a fourth-year movie animation scholar at Concordia.
The stop-motion movie directed by Lavis and Szczerbowski and produced by the Nationwide Movie Board of Canada has made worldwide waves, screening at greater than 40 festivals earlier than its Oscar win Sunday.
For college kids like Sorkilmo, amongst roughly 45 others in this system, the win has hit particularly near residence.
“As somebody who actually likes to do cease movement, that’s what I need to do, it was so thrilling to see one thing so lovingly hand crafted by alumni, by individuals right here in Montreal, get such excessive worldwide acclaim,” Sorkilmo mentioned.
Set within the early Twentieth-century, “The Woman Who Cried Pearls” follows a poor boy who falls in love with a mysterious woman who weeps pearls at night time — mixing darkish fantasy with delicate stop-motion craft.
The preliminary inspiration for the movie, which took 5 years to make, got here years earlier through the manufacturing of the duo’s 2007 quick movie “Madame Tutli-Putli,” when a prop necklace unexpectedly fell aside, scattering pearls throughout the set as they have been filming the scene.
Past its Oscar win, the quick movie has taken residence 4 extra awards. It received greatest Canadian quick movie on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant, greatest Canadian animation on the Ottawa Worldwide Animation Pageant, the Benshi Award on the Annecy Worldwide Animation Movie Pageant, and the AniB’s Selection Award on the Bucheon Worldwide Animation Pageant.
Sorkilmo mentioned its success has impressed her to pursue a future within the business after years of curiosity and exhausting work.
“I’ve recognized a bit about animation clearly right here in Montreal and cease movement and it makes me excited realizing that there’s a place for me to pursue that,” she mentioned. “I attempt to realize their degree of professionalism and finesse.”
Luigi Allemano, program director of the movie animation program at Concordia College, mentioned the craft isn’t simple, and a brief stop-motion movie usually takes years to make.
Sometimes, 12 to 24 frames are captured for each second of footage, between photographing bodily objects, shifting them barely, and photographing them once more to create the phantasm of motion.
Although extremely technical, Allemano mentioned wins like these ought to remind college students that worldwide success can begin proper right here at residence.
“There are alternatives on your work to get on the market on this planet and to inform a narrative that isn’t purely for leisure worth,” Allemano mentioned. “This may be acknowledged on the identical platform that Disney and Pixar are acknowledged on.”
Allemano added this must also present college students there may be that means in what they do past simply buying employable expertise. He additionally highlighted that, regardless of a disproportionate quantity of Canadian expertise going into worldwide animation, recognition could be achieved.
“I’m extraordinarily pleased with that recognition and the willpower lots of college students need to have to achieve this discipline,” Allemano mentioned. “In a metropolis like ours, we’ve got a wholesome neighborhood the place persons are making issues by hand and telling viable tales in a reasonably conventional approach that’s being acknowledged around the globe.”
And for Sorkilmo, she’s dreaming massive, hoping to someday be a part of a Canadian success story like this one.
“I really feel prefer it’s develop into a bit extra of a distinct segment so I’ve at all times been impressed to work on that and be somebody who can contribute that to the world — particularly Canadian filmmaking,” she mentioned.
This marks the primary Oscar win for Lavis and Szczerbowski, though their 2007 quick, Madame Tutli-Putli, was beforehand nominated as nicely.
In regards to the movie: The Woman Who Cried Pearls
The 17-minute movie begins when a younger woman discovers a pearl in her grandfather’s examine, resulting in a narrative that blurs the strains between fact and fiction.
The grandfather goes on to explain his childhood in Twentieth-century in Montreal, the place he survived as a poor harbor scavenger and lived subsequent door to a troubled household — most notably a woman he claimed cried pearls every night time resulting from abuse at residence.
In keeping with his account, he secretly collected the discarded pearls and offered them by way of a ruthless pawnbroker, whose jeweler deemed them in contrast to something he had seen earlier than; the jeweler calling them priceless.
Although initially reluctant to revenue from the woman’s struggling given his deep love for her, the boy was persuaded by the pawnbroker to proceed, finally saving sufficient to depart for Paris.
However as he prepares to depart, the sudden loss of life of the woman’s father got here to mild. After staying for yet one more day and listening to the grieving woman crying all night time, the household disappeared, shifting someplace unknown. The boy was extraordinarily puzzled.
The boy then found tons of of pearls within the flooring and took them to the pawnbroker following the daddy’s loss of life.
However the story takes a flip when equivalent pearls are later revealed to be low cost imports, casting doubt on their supposed rarity.
Within the current day, the grandfather admits {that a} story may give an object its worth, saying he had scavenged the pearls and invented the backstory to deceive the pawnbroker.
The grandfather suggests the pearl’s true worth lies not in its materials price, however within the story behind it, leaving his granddaughter questioning whether or not the tragic woman ever existed in spite of everything.