This January, celebrate the eighth edition of Animation First, the biggest animation festival in the United States! This year's festival will run from Tuesday, January 21 through Sunday, January 26, and will present seven feature-length films and five short film programs, with a special focus on Swiss animation. Curators Delphine Selles-Alvarez and Chloe Dheu explain, "The 2025 edition of Animation First offers a bold mix of features, shorts, talks, and VR that range from family-friendly to experimental and off the charts. Playful, serious, engaging, and at times radical, the festival will transport audiences to places far and wide."

This year, the festival presents seven feature-length films (including three U.S, two New York, and one East Coast Premiere) and five short film programs. Fifteen guests from around the world join us for filmmaker talks, a first look presentation, and QandA discussions. Back by popular demand, Animation Speak/Easy joins us for the second year in a row, as does our juried competition of the new Francophone shorts programs. The festival will also feature virtual reality experiences, our annual Student Short Film Competition, and even an interactive make-your-own stop-motion experience for guests in the Tinker Lounge. We're also thrilled to have Swiss animator and director Georges Schwizgebel design our second-annual limited-edition Animation First series poster.  

With films for adults, teens, and kids, the festival is crafted to engage and entertain guests of all ages throughout nearly a week of programming. Buy your festival pass today!

Schedule of Events:

7:15 pm: Opening Night Film - The Most Precious of Cargoes

By Michel Hazanavicius, 2024, France, Belgium, 81min, DCP

Voiced by Dominique Blanc, Gregory Gadebois, Denis Podalydes, Jean-Louis Trintignant - In French with English subtitles

From Michel Hazanavicius, author of award-winning The Artist (2011), comes an adaptation of author Jean-Claude Grumberg's 2019 novel. This fairytale, with voices from notable actors Dominique Blanc, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Gregory Gadebois, and Denis Podalydes, amongst others, follows a humble lumberjack and his wife, who live in a remote Polish forest. The wife often laments the absence of children in their lives. Day and night, trains pass through the forest, their sounds echoing through the trees. One day, as the wife watches what she assumes to be a cargo train passing by, she discovers that a baby has been tossed from the train, en route to Auschwitz, into the snow. Her decision to rescue the baby will change their lives forever…

Don't forget to stop by the opening of gallery exhibition, Covering The New Yorker, at 6pm!

Click here to Buy Tickets