An Animation Weekend Comes to Sag Harbor Cinema

Four new animated features from the U.S., U.K., France and China will screen on Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6, as part of the inaugural “Sag Harbor Cinema’s Animation Weekend.” The films range from classic animation and traditional ink painting, to stop motion and claymation. There will also be a live virtual Q&A from Sag Harbor native Peter Brownsgardt, director of “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie,” and two claymation workshops for children.

“Animation has always been a big part of our year-round Kids and Families Matinees series,” said Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, the cinema’s founding artistic director. “This special weekend will bring to the cinema some highlights of recent international animation, as well as the beloved Looney Tunes characters featured in a new movie directed by Sag Harbor’s own Pete Browngardt. It is a group of beautifully crafted and fun films, whose different styles and techniques will offer to our audiences — young, but not only — a great insight into this fundamental form of filmmaking.”

Browngardt will join the cinema for a live Q&A via Zoom following the screening of his first full-length feature “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” on Sunday, April 6, at 3:15 p.m. In the film, notorious frenemies Porky Pig and Daffy Duck team up to face an alien invasion. A native of Sag Harbor, Browngardt discovered his passion for animation early, creating his first animated films at just eight years old. After high school, he was accepted into the prestigious Character Animation program at CalArts. At just 19, he began working professionally on “Futurama,” later contributing to projects at Industrial Light & Magic and MTV Animation.

The weekend will also include an epic story from Chinese indie animator Busifan “The Storm” about a spirited boy and his adoptive father who search for treasure on a mysterious ship. The film features stunning animation inspired by traditional Chinese ink painting.

“I wanted to take viewers on an immersive journey into the heart of Chinese culture and mythology while exploring universal themes such as family, courage, and resilience,” Busifan said in a statement about “The Storm.”

Also part of the special program are two brilliant examples of stop-motion animation: “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the newest epic claymation adventure by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham featuring the U.K.’s favorite eccentric, cheese-loving inventor and his beagle in which the duo must face-off against an artificially intelligent “smart” gnome; and the highly lauded stop-motion animation “Sauvages” (Savages) from French animator Claude Barras. “Sauvages,” which premiered at Cannes in 2024, tells the story of an indigenous girl who must protect an orphaned orangutan in the jungles of Borneo. Carras’ first full-length animated feature “Ma Vie de Courgette” (“My Life as a Zucchini”) was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards in 2017.

Two children’s claymation workshops will be offered as a part of the Animation Weekend. The first workshop (ages 5 to 10) will take place on Saturday, April 5, following the screening of “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” and the second workshop (ages 11 to 16) will take place on Sunday, April 6, following the screening of “Sauvages.” Participants are strongly encouraged to attend the films.

The workshops will be taught by local filmmaker Julian Alvarez. Since graduating from New York University, he has worked on documentaries, short films and features which have screened at Tribeca, New York, Hamptons International, Austin, and Philadelphia film festivals. He also co-teaches the Summer Film Workshop for High School Students at Sag Harbor Cinema.

Each of the four films screening at “Sag Harbor Cinema’s Animation Weekend” will play once. Tickets are available individually or as an Animation Weekend Pass which is $30 ($20 for members). The full lineup with times, tickets and passes are available at the box office or sagharborcinema.org.