How to Be Alone (2009 film)

How to Be Alone
Directed byAndrea Dorfman
Written byTanya Davis
Produced byAndrea Dorfman
Walter Forsyth
Narrated byTanya Davis
Music byTanya Davis
Animation byAndrea Dorfman
Production
company
Gorgeous Mistake Productions
Release date
  • October 6, 2009 (2009-10-06) (VIFF)
Running time
5 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

How to Be Alone is a Canadian short film, directed by Andrea Dorfman and released in 2009. The film animates a spoken word piece by poet Tanya Davis about things that a person can do on their own after the breakup of a relationship.

The film premiered on October 6, 2009, at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and was subsequently broadcast on Bravo's Bravo!FACT Presents short film anthology series. In 2010 Dorfman uploaded the film to YouTube, where it quickly went viral, attracting over a million views in a matter of a few weeks.

In 2013 Davis released a book edition of the poem, with illustrations by Dorfman.

In 2020, Dorfman and Davis released the sequel film How to Be At Home, animating another spoken word piece about coping with isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the National Film Board of Canada's The Curve series.