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Special Delivery

(Livraison spéciale)

Year: 1978
Language: English
Format: 35mm Colour
Runtime: 7 min
Director: John Weldon, Eunice Macaulay
Producer: Derek Lamb
Writer: Eunice Macaulay, John Weldon
Cinematographer: Simon Leblanc, Raymond Dumas
Animation: Eunice Macaulay, John Weldon
Sound: Michel Descombes, Jean-Pierre Joutel
Music: Karl Duplessis
Narration: Sandy Sanderson, Jean Marchand
Production Company: National Film Board of Canada

Special Delivery, which won an Academy Award® for Animated Short Film, is a satire that combines elements of a detective story with a soap opera. Its plot twists revolve around the consequences of a husband failing to clean the snow off the front steps; by the end of the story, a mailman has slipped and died as a result. Drawn in coloured pencil on paper and imbued with a deliciously macabre tone, Special Delivery’s witty inventiveness derives as much from the animation as from the absurdist story. The film was immensely popular on the festival circuit and won awards in New York, Melbourne and Zagreb.

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