The much-loved GLAS Animation Festival is staging an in-person comeback, but it won’t be next year and it won’t be in Berkeley, California. The festival, which was started by filmmaker Jeanette Jeanenne, is instead targeting a 2024 relocation to the beachside town of Santa Cruz, California.
The festival’s traditional home, Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley, was hit hard by the pandemic and closed its doors for good in May of this year. Without Shattuck as a centrally located home base, the organizers felt it was no longer feasible to host the festival in Berkeley, hence the decision to move.
In 2019, GLAS Animation Festival was canceled by Covid, and the event has been held entirely online since 2020. In April of this year, a lineup of distinguished guest speakers from around the world dialed in to participate, including Cyriak Harris, Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña, Tomek Popakul, Lucrèce Andreae, and Takeshi Murata, among others.