FESTIVAL HISTORY

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The idea for a festival germinated in my mind many, many years ago when I, Kirk Palayan, first started teaching the computer animation class at King. In June 2003, Ms. Martin and I decided to have the 1st Annual Festival in the auditorium. We had three periods of animation and film presentations to over 900 students, and it was a great success. A year later, with the assistance of the phenomenal American Film Institute and some persistence, the 2nd annual version of the festival took place at the wonderful Vista Theatre, a beautifully restored, vintage movie house in Los Feliz. With the great support of Mr. Alspaugh and the Los Feliz Improvement Association, the festival has been a great success for the last 19 years. It is very important to note that the wonderful staff at the Los Feliz 3 & Vista Theatre really make the event memorable, and none of this would be possible without the support of Mr. Alspaugh, to whom we are all indebted; thank you, Mr. Alspaugh. Even with the pandemic, we have been having the festival; the 17th annual version took place virtually online at the Vista website in June 2020!! It was hosted on this site in 2021 and YouTube and had over 20 thousand views!! In 2022 we had over 80 thousand views!!!! The 20th Anniversary version of the festival took place at the LOS FELIZ 3 and on YouTube—garnering 21 thousand views! The 21st Annual Festival had a full house at the Los Feliz 3 and garnered over 35,000 views! In 2025 we returned again to the Los Feliz 3, thanks to the support of the American Cinematheque and Mr. Lance Alspaugh, with the YouTube page, which was posted after the festival. In June 2026, with the untimely passing of the festival supporter and friend, Mr. Lance Alspaugh, the festival took place online over on YouTube, and we have hit over 80 thousand views and look forward to screening it to our community in June 2027!