2027 Oscars Short Film Contenders: ‘Bread Will Walk’ Director Alex Boya

Bread Will Walk is a Canadian animated short written, directed and animated by Alex Boya. In a famine-stricken world, a sister tries to protect her brother after miracle bread turns him into an edible

A Younger Brother Turned into Bread and a Starving Crowd

As the planet suffers from famine, the company The Mill unveils miracle bread. However, anyone who eats it turns into a walking lump of bread. Bread Will Walk is a 2025 Canadian animated short that follows an older sister fleeing with her younger brother, who has been turned into bread, while a starving crowd chases after him as prey.

A Chase That Turns the Zombie Genre on Its Head

The work’s central premise is that the direction of the threat is opposite to that of a typical zombie film. Those who have transformed are not hunters but the hunted, while the maze of streets and hunger put pressure on the sister’s efforts to protect him. Alex Boya handled the writing, direction, and animation, while Jay Baruchel performed the voices of all the characters.

Anxiety Created by Hand-Drawn Frames

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) describes the film as being structured like a single, constantly transforming shot that combines more than 4,000 hand-drawn frames with digital collage. Within its approximately 11-minute runtime, it combines body horror with dark humor to satirize overconsumption, corporate greed, and propaganda.

NFB Online Release

The film became available on the NFB online platform on October 13, 2026. It was selected for Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and the short film competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Its distinctive feature is the way it turns the relationship between hunger and survival into the very rules of a chase story.

Source: NFB film description · NFB release announcement