This year marks the 75th anniversary of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the film will be celebrated with a state-of-the-art digital presentation at the New York Film Festival on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the prestigious Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The film will be introduced by acclaimed animator/director Eric Goldberg, who served as supervisor of the Genie character in Aladdin, co-directer of Pocahontas, and counts Fantasia 2000 among his credits. Festival attendees will also get a sneak peek at Walt Disney Animation Studios’ newest animated short Paperman, an innovative new animated film that combines the best of both the computer-animated and hand-drawn worlds. Paperman, directed by John Kahrs and produced by Kristina Reed (and utilizing Goldberg’s animation talents), will open in theaters in November with the arcade-game-hopping adventure Wreck-It Ralph.
“It’s an honor to be introducing Snow White at this year’s New York Film Festival, marking the film’s 75th anniversary,” said Goldberg. “Walt used to refer to Snow White as ‘the one that started it all,’ and he was right. The storytelling, the emotions, the cinematics and the comedy are all so true and so powerful, it’s astonishing to think this assured piece of filmmaking was the studio’s first feature effort. Anyone who is working or has worked in the animation medium owes Snow White a huge debt, as it never ceases to inspire us. Walt and his team created something that is timeless: it isn’t a question of whether Snow White is lacking in surround sound, computer graphics or stereoscopic 3D, it’s whether today’s films can measure up to Snow White.”
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered on December 21, 1937 at the Carthay Circle Theater in Hollywood, and was the first animated feature film produced by Hollywood. More than 750 artists worked on the film, which took three years to produce. The film received a special Academy Award in 1939, consisting of one full-size Oscar and seven dwarf Oscars, presented to Walt Disney by Shirley Temple. The film became the highest-grossing motion picture up until that time, and held that distinction for two more years (until it was surpassed in 1939 by MGM’s Gone with the Wind).
So if you’re feeling particularly nostalgic, and you’ll be attending the 2012 New York film festival, you can experience Snow White on the big screen once again. As a bonus you also get to see the new Paperman short!
