That’s when Roger Ebert saw it on YouTube and tweeted about it, activating its viral success. The popularity of the film really started to snowball last August. I had no plan or assumption that a lot of people would hear it or how they’d interpret it. I never meant to be preachy, or I’m an expert or anything. “When I was saying how to be alone, and talking in that directional voice, I’m actually talking to me. A lot of artists, writers and musicians have to reconcile with that aloneness.”ĭavis also didn’t expect the work to be used as an instructional video. You have to be alone in order to produce. “But there’s being alone as in not being in a relationship. “Turns out, Tanya’s an expert on how to be alone,” says Dorfman, laughing. Neither expected the film to explode in the public consciousness the way it did. The title came from her friend, collaborator and director, Andrea Dorfman. This is how the poem Tanya Davis wrote about surviving loneliness begins, the poem that is also a film. If you’ve not been alone much or when you were you weren’t OK with it, just wait.” “ not something that you want to get rid of, especially as a creative person.“If you are, at first, lonely, be patient. “I think I uncovered layers that weren’t quite as apparent in the film,” she says.I keep my options open'” – In the Globe and Mail ‘I do drawings, paintings, make film and write.

“‘I’ve always resisted labels,’ she adds by way of explanation.“ Flawed serves up a charming, funny and keenly observant look at aesthetic insecurities and the variety of perspectives and opinions surrounding the mass concept of beauty” – In Exclaim!.“Bold, funny, and brimming with emotional intelligence: a charming debut” – In Kirkus Reviews.

She teaches occasionally at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Dorfman lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her boyfriend, his children, and a cat. Her video poem collaboration with poet Tanya Davis, How to Be Alone, has garnered more than eight million views on Facebook and was published in 2013. Flawed, adapted from the Emmy-nominated film of the same name, is Dorfman’s first book. Andrea Dorfman is an award-winning animator, filmmaker, cinematographer, and artist.

How to be alone andrea dorfman