2026 Animation First Collaboration
Another great year of collaboration with the 9th annual Animation First Festival, hosted by L’Alliance New York. The festival offered various opportunities for the School of Visual Arts, BFA 3D Animation and Visual Effects and BFA Animation community to step beyond campus and engage in the growing international world of animation.
Student Short Film Competition Student Jurors
School of Visual Arts (SVA), CalArts, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and the University of Southern California (USC), were all tasked with selecting the Best French Film. While the participating French student jury from Gobelins, RUBIKA, l'École des Nouvelles Images, and Emile Cohl, evaluated submissions from the American schools. Sana Kakumanu (BFA 2027 3D Animation and Visual Effects) and Nevaeh Williams (BFA 2026 Animation) were part of the student jury from the four participating American schools. Sana shares about her experiences as a juror and selection process: “As student jurors, we reflected on how our individual perspectives shaped our opinions of each film. We each began with our top three, then narrowed it to the most recurring picks until all jurors reached the group’s final three. We chose the film with the most impactful story. My personal favorite film was Coup de cœur: Chère Fin, created by the students from Gobelins. It was a timeless story of reflection and finding meaning, and was done so beautifully. It was very moving and reminded me why we create art in the first place. Many of the films challenged my expectations of what a student film should look like and reassess traditional narrative structures. Moving forward, I want to create for the sake of creating and not create to be recognized.”
Winners of the ‘Best French Film’ award in the Student Shorts category was Gauze by Noran Fikri Alezabi, Nicholas Arujah, Xinyue Ma, Yulin Yue, Xiaonan Zhou (Gobelins), while the winners for “Best American Film” were Sleep Sweetly by Sage Saccio (BFA 2025 Animation) and Death is a Giant Peanut by Amy Boisvert (CalArts).
Animation Jam 48-Hour Challenge - BFA Animation Students
The Animation Jam is a unique opportunity for students to meet students from within and beyond the BFA Animation department. Teams from each participating school, Montpellier, BrassArts, Maryland Institute College of Art and SVA, had under 48 hours to create an 18-second collaborative film. Using any animation mixed media techniques they all had to incorporate a still image and audio provided by guest artist Félix Dufour-Laperrière from his film Death Does Not Exist. This year’s SVA has two teams: The Zenith Horizons and the Glorp and Gleepers and they are given an opportunity to present the AniJam in its enterity at the festival’s award ceremony.
Moderating the Making of “The Songbirds’ Secret”
This year, I was invited to moderate Making of The Songbirds’ Secret with set designer Samuel Ribeyron, who shared an in depth look at the behind the scenes process of the feature paper cutout animated film, which involved more than 2,000 puppets and a multiplane camera setup. During his visit to New York, Samuel also spent time at SVA BFA Animation, meeting with several thesis students and learning about their production processes. Students received thoughtful and generous feedback on their work, including BFA Animation senior, Emmanuelle Martinez, who shared her stop motion set and animation tests. The wonderful filmmakers and creative artists we are able to invite are what make our educational experience so unique. Animation is such a collaborative art form, and I am deeply grateful to Animation First for always thinking of our SVA community and sharing their network of professionals with our emerging talent. I look forward to seeing the incredible films they will bring next year.