Submissions are now open for the 8th edition of the GLAS Animation Festival which will take place December 6th and 7th, 2025 in Los Angeles.
GLAS Animation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2014. Our core mission is to cultivate and promote the art and science of animation. We provide a unique platform for independent animation, champion diverse and underrepresented voices, and emphasize exceptional directors and artists that push visual, conceptual, and narrative boundaries within the cinematic artform. We are a community-driven organization that not only exhibits animated films, but creates a context and language for a shared understanding and appreciation of animation in the United States.
GLAS exhibits films from local and international artists and filmmakers across the animation spectrum, creating a community and space for industry veterans, historians, animation enthusiasts, and emerging talent from diverse backgrounds to come together, share, learn, and appreciate the animated art form in a critical context. We started GLAS to showcase the most exciting animation being made around the world and expand the scope of how animation is understood as an artistic medium in the United States.
At the heart of the festival is the international competition, which showcases five curated programs of the most exceptional contemporary animated short films. These programs are the highlight of the festival as they demonstrate most fully the expressive abilities of animation as a medium. Created oftentimes by an individual artist or small team, these films push the boundaries of film itself through a singular vision not possible in any other medium.
We also host retrospectives, special curated programs, workshops, panel discussions, performances, and installations. We invite a diverse range of national and international guest speakers and presenters from various sections of the filmmaking community to come share their works, their knowledge, their expertise, and to facilitate discussion. The speakers and presenters we invite represent a multitude of aspects of the animation community including industry veterans, notable independent animators, curators, performance artists, and installation artists.
We bring this wide breadth of talent to have people in the US be able to see it all within a cinematic context. We believe in the power of a festival as a context to view films as an instigator for building communities and relationships.
