The National Film Board of Canada will be in Cannes this year with Alex Boya’s animated short film Bread Will Walk, which has been selected to screen in the Directors’ Fortnight. Organised by the Société des Réalisatrices et Réalisateurs de Films, the Directors’ Fortnight is a sidebar section of the Cannes Film Festival and runs from 14 to 24 May 2025.
Synopsis: A devoted sister flees with her brother, a benevolent, bread-turned zombie. A mob pursues, mouths agape. Streets twist into mazes, reason dissolves, hunger reigns. Can love defy appetite?
The 11 min 17 second short is an NFB production (Jelena Popović). Actor Jay Baruchel voices all the characters in the original English version of this frenetic, surrealist satire of our dehumanising society, designed as a continuous shot.
Boya graduated from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in film production. The Bulgarian-born Montreal animator and filmmaker is known for his surreal, hand-drawn storytelling. At the NFB, he made Focus (2014) and Turbine (2018), both of which earned Special Mentions at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, with Turbine also winning Best Animation Short at NYC Shorts. Bread Will Walk sees him continue to craft worlds where poetry, technology and absurdity intertwine.
Government film commissioner and NFB chairperson Suzanne Guèvremont said, “The NFB is a unique creative space that also stands out for its ability to innovate and take risks. Over the years, it has nurtured the careers of many emerging filmmakers and helped discover new talent. One such talent is Alex Boya, who made his first film, Focus (2014), as a participant in the NFB’s Hothouse animation mentorship program. The selection of Bread Will Walk for the Directors’ Fortnight speaks to the creative and visionary strengths of the NFB’s animation units and its artists.”
NFB French Animation Unit and English Animation Unit executive producer Christine Noël expressed, “With his edgy, unorthodox visual approach, Alex Boya treats us to a brilliant, continuous shot filled with surreal metamorphoses, blending hand-drawn animation, painting and digital collage, and in the process reinventing the language of animation.”
The animated short will then be presented in official competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, taking place 8 to 14 June 2025.
