PSIAF & Comic Con Palm Springs partner for weekend attraction

Comic Con Palm Springs and the Palm Springs International Animation Festival are partnering up for a weekend of screenings, meet and greets, and panels.

This year marks the second year of the PSIAF, but the first year of the partnership with Comic Con Palm Springs.

“We’re sharing our audiences to help raise awareness about both (PSIAF and Comic Con Palm Springs) since the animation festival is new. And actually there are only a few festivals in America that are known,” said Brian Neilhoff, the founder and festival director for PSIAF.

The two events draw crowds from all over the world, according to Neilhoff.

“This is a global competition and animation. We have animations from over 103 countries, and 20 styles. We’re doing 10 feature film screenings and over 250 shorts and all of these films are competing for awards,” Neilhoff said.

The event has a wide array of short films created for all age groups. One is even produced by SEGA, the multinational video game developer.

“‘Sonic Mania Adventures’ is a five-part mini-series that SEGA produced to go along with ‘Sonic Mania Plus,’ which is the physical addition to ‘Sonic Mania.'” said Jasmin Hernandez of SEGA Sonic. “We have one (film) on social media with almost 8 million views, so we were really excited to bring it to the big screen.”

The four-day festival gives creators the opportunity to network, a chance to gain new fans, and the possibility to inspire others.

“People watch real movies, and then you see these movies that are fake, but they’re still emotional and they have these actions about them and that’s what really brings out the joyful memories of animation to me,” said Marco Valdez, an animation and comic enthusiast.

Both Comic Con and the Animation Festival take place this weekend at the Palm Springs Air Museum. For tickets and a schedule of events for the Animation Festival click here. For tickets and more information on Comic Con click here.