How to Be Alone (2009 film)

How to Be Alone is a Canadian short film, directed by Andrea Dorfman and released in 2009.^[1] 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.^[2]

How to Be Alone
Directed by	Andrea Dorfman
Written by	Tanya Davis
Produced by	Andrea Dorfman Walter Forsyth
Narrated by	Tanya Davis
Music by	Tanya Davis
Animation by	Andrea Dorfman
Production company	Gorgeous Mistake Productions
Release date	October 6, 2009 (2009-10-06) (VIFF)
Running time	5 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English

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.^[3] 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.^[4]

In 2013 Davis released a book edition of the poem, with illustrations by Dorfman.^[5]

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.^[6]