When the Day Breaks is a Canadian animated short co-directed by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis[1] and featuring the voice of Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright singing the titular song.
| When the Day Breaks | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis |
| Produced by | David Verrall & Barrie Angus McLean |
| Music by | Judith Gruber-Stitzwer |
| Distributed by | National Film Board of Canada |
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Running time | 9 min. |
| Country | Canada |
After witnessing an accidental death of a stranger, a humanoid pig seeks comfort from her everyday life in the city.[2]
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 1999, the 9 min. 40 sec. film garnered numerous awards, including the Genie Award for Best Animated Short, the Short Film Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, TIFF – Best Canadian Short, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival – Animated Short, Grand Prix for short film at Animafest Zagreb and the Banff Television Festival, Best Animation Program.[3][4] It was also included in the Animation Show of Shows.[5][6]
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, losing to another animated short produced in Montreal: Aleksandr Petrov's Old Man and the Sea.[7][8][9]
To create the film, directors used pencil and paint on photocopies to achieve a textured look suggestive of a lithograph or a flickering newsreel.[10]
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