Chris Lavis is an Academy Award winning animator and director. His first film, with longtime collaborator Maciek Szczerbowski, MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI (2007), was recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short. Lavis and Szczerbowski went on to adapt Maurice Sendak’s HIGGELTY-PIGGELTY POP! produced by Spike Jonze and starring Meryl Streep. In 2016, the duo were recognized with a nomination for Best Art Direction at the Canadian Screen Awards for their work on Guy Maddin’s THE FORBIDDEN ROOM. And in 2017, retrospectives at the Cinémathèque Québécoise and the Annecy International Animation Festival celebrated twenty years of their artistic creations. In 2019 they created GYMNASIA, an innovative blend of virtual reality and stop-motion animation, which premiered at the Tribeca Film festival, and won them a Canadian Screen Award for Best Immersive Experience. Lavis and Szczerbowski’s latest film, THE GIRL WHO CRIED PEARLS, was chosen as the opening film at the Annecy International Animation Festival, won the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, and garnered the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at the 2026 Academy Awards.
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CEEA Talks: Sabine Andersone on BAMU and Latvian Animation: ”The time to reconnect and build Baltic partnerships”
