Blackfly (film)


Blackfly is a 1991 Canadian animated short from Christopher Hinton, produced by the National Film Board of Canada and based on "The Black Fly Song" by Wade Hemsworth. It was nominated for an Academy Award and Genie Award for Best Animated Short. The song is performed in the film by Hemsworth with back-up vocals from Kate & Anna McGarrigle.

Synopsis

Wade Hemsworth's popular song, written in 1949 while he was working in Northern Ontario, is used as the source material for this delightful cartoon from the NFB. A young man goes to work for a survey crew in what is now Little Abitibi Provincial Park and encounters blackflies everywhere he goes. Over and over again, he encounters those pesky little bloodsuckers. He even goes to the moon, only to be swarmed there as well. His only recourse is to leave the North, vowing never to return.