Montreal animator Torill Kove says winning an Academy Award is a "boost of confidence" but might not make a big difference in her career.

"I just want to live in Montreal and make films there," she told CBC Television in an interview Monday after winning the award for best animated short Sunday night.

Torill Kove accepts the Oscar for best animated short film for The Danish Poet at the 79th Academy Awards Sunday night in Los Angeles.
(Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press)

"An Oscar is great, but it's not going to give you any new ideas."

Her winning entry, The Danish Poet, follows Kasper, a poet whose creative well has run dry, on a holiday to Norway to meet a famous writer.

On the way, he deals with bad weather, an angry dog, hungry goats and a broken heart, telling a gentle and occasionally humorous tale of the small coincidences that change our lives.

Kove works in an old-fashioned animation style, drawing the original figures and backgrounds in pencil and scanning in the images and adding colour using digital technology.

It was the second Oscar nomination for Kove, who also was named in 2000 for My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirt, another National Film Board production.

NFB, Ullman thanked

For the NFB, it was the 12th Academy Award among more than 60 nominations. But it was a first win for Norwegian-born Kove, who said she spent the minutes before the announcement trying to calm herself.

"I  think if I didn't hope I would win, I wouldn't be human," she said. "At the same time, I was thinking, if I don't win, I won't have to get up there and make a speech."

Her husband accompanied her on the long walk to the stage.

In her acceptance speech, she thanked the NFB and Norwegian actress Liv Ullman, who narrated the story.

"I want to thank the Academy for this wonderful award — it's such an honour — and also for continuing to support the animated short category; that really means a lot to us," she said.

The inclusion of the category at the Academy Awards focuses attention on animators and makers of short films, she said.

Kove said she got about an hour of sleep Sunday night after attending the Vanity Fair party.

"The thing about winning a trophy like that is that it gives you access to the 'in' groups," she said.

Kove said she doesn't know yet what she'll do with her Oscar statue. "It's quite big and it's heavy," she said.

Norway was also celebrating Kove's Oscar victory. 

Kove said in an interview with Canadian Press that the story "could not have been more Norwegian."

CBC will broadcast The Danish Poet March 4.