The Man Who Planted Trees

The short adapts Jean Giono's 1953 story about Elzeard Bouffier, a shepherd who spends decades planting trees in a barren region of Provence. Giono later clarified that Bouffier was fictional, but the story has often been read as an ecological fable.

The English-language version is narrated by Christopher Plummer. The original French version, titled L'homme qui plantait des arbres, was made by Canadian animator Frederic Back for Radio-Canada.

Frederic Back used a hand-drawn style built around soft pencil and colored-pencil textures rather than hard cartoon outlines. That visual approach suits the short's slow transformation of a ruined landscape into a forest over many years.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for 1987. It was Back's second Oscar in that category after Crac! from 1981.