Starry Nights Cinema: First Impressions

Designed for the festival’s youngest viewers and children attending an outdoor screening for the first time, this 62-minute program combines gentle animation and live action from several countries. The shorts are in English, bilingual English and Spanish, or have no dialogue.

Short-film lineup

• Away We Go: An animated musical celebrates beauty, connection, exploration, and shared adventure.
• Build: Marshmallow-by-marshmallow stop motion encourages curiosity, imagination, and playful making.
• Dancing in the Rain: A child escaping Taiwan’s summer heat dreams of flooded streets and synchronized-swimming mice.
• The Dandelion: A dandelion experiences the natural circle of life.
• Foools: Two sweet clowns speaking the invented language of Circush try to comfort a friend whose fireflies have disappeared.
• Found!: A winter walk becomes a hide-and-seek game with a playful animal before ending in a warm return home.
• Master Painter Dotty: A prolific young turtle cannot understand her grandmother’s muted reaction to each new painting until she discovers the reason.
• The Magic You Need Is Within: A brief poetic film encourages children to recognize their inner strengths and the causes they care about.
• The Motherless Egg: A dog and squirrel care for an unattended egg after an absent-minded chicken dances away.
• One More Cup: Toddler Leona’s first stuffed-animal tea party unexpectedly becomes a global media spectacle; the film received the festival’s 2026 audience award for live-action short.
• Sketches on Ice: A snowman appears to move in time with a child’s hesitant clarinet practice.
• Tatarang!: A textile and cut-felt dog travels from place to place, making friends along the way.
• Wishes: Windows & Nests: Lulú and her magical companion Kino search for ways to help city birds build nests despite anti-bird spikes.

Outdoor-screening details

Admission and popcorn are free. Families should bring chairs or blankets; picnic baskets are welcome. The event is weather-dependent, and the lineup may change without notice. The organizer also maintains a general notice that attendees may be photographed for documentation and promotional use.