When the Day Breaks is a Canadian animated short co-directed by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis[1][2] and featuring the voice of Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright singing the titular song.
[3] To create the film, directors used pencil and paint on photocopies to achieve a textured look suggestive of a lithograph or a flickering newsreel.
[4][5] Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 1999, the 9 min.
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.
[8][9] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, but lost to another animated short produced in Montreal: Aleksandr Petrov's Old Man and the Sea.