TAMPA, Fla. — Guests streamed into the University of Tampa’s Charlene A. Gordon Theater Thursday night.

Tampa’s no stranger to major arts events, but this was something new: The 200 animation enthusiasts in attendance were there to watch what Variety considers the front-runner for the best animated feature Oscar, “Wildwood,” with its studio’s head of animation appearing in person to present it. All to raise the curtain on the 2026 edition of the Tampa Animation Festival.

The ambition here is big.

Tampa has a growing film culture, but the event, which ran through Sunday on the university campus, marks a first step in making Tampa a hub for animation. It may one day be an Academy Awards-qualifying festival in the years ahead.

If that happens, animated shorts and features programmed in the Tampa Animation Festival’s lineup will be eligible for Oscar nomination shortlists.

Gregg Perkins, head of the film, animation and new media program at the University of Tampa and founder of the Tampa Animation Festival, noted it takes seven consecutive years of holding a festival — and demonstrating consistent programming quality for both features and shorts — for it to be considered as an Academy Awards-qualifying event. This is just year two, though Perkins held earlier versions of the festival in the 2010s.

“It’s a film festival kind of built by artists for artists,” Perkins, 55, told the Tampa Bay Times, singling out programmer Derek Horne for praise. “And we’re also sharing it with the community because it’s a free festival.”

The people who’ve been honored with prizes here have done work you’ve seen too. Last year’s “Best Stop-Motion Animation” winner Michael Granberry was lead animator on Henry Selick’s “Wendell & Wild” and a stop-motion animator on “Guillermo de Toro’s Pinocchio.” He also animated many of the stop-motion Instacart commercials that aired last holiday season.

Perkins is keen not to wait five years for the Tampa Animation Festival to become an international destination for filmmakers.

In some ways, it already is: This year, the festival received submissions from prominent film animation schools across six continents, according to Perkins.

In the years ahead, however, he wants the festival to be an animation market, much like the Marche du Film at the Cannes Film Festival. That event connects filmmakers with prospective buyers. And he wants Tampa to become a destination where studios, producers and other buyers with deep pocketbooks connect with new talent.

Tampa Bay’s three most notable film festivals — St. Petersburg’s Sunscreen Film Festival, Tampa’s Gasparilla Film Festival, and the Sarasota Film Festival — are not sales festivals built around potential acquisitions. That means Hollywood’s biggest movers and shakers are usually not present. The Tampa Animation Festival would thus be in a league of its own in future years.

Of keeping the sole animation focus, Perkins said, “In the back of my head I thought, ‘Why not just do one thing and do it really well?’ Let’s not be like everybody else.”

Having Brad Schiff, the head of animation at Laika, the studio behind “Wildwood,” in person to discuss the film doesn’t just show off the festival’s ambition and industry — it shows the University of Tampa’s pedigree. Schiff is a 1993 graduate, who went there specifically for its animation program, launched by late professor Richard Protovin.

Schiff worked on Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride,” Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and every Laika film since the studio’s debut, “Coraline,” in 2009. The 56-year-old earned an Oscar nomination for Visual Effects on the studio’s “Kubo and the Two Strings.”

On Thursday, Schiff gave a 45-minute talk and advice to the animation students in the audience.

“I owe it to UT,” Schiff told the Tampa Bay Times. “It got me started on my journey, and I love coming back and talking to students. I really try to be the person that I always wish I had access to when I was in school. I feel it’s really important, and if I could make a difference in somebody’s career, help inspire somebody, or give them the right advice that helps them on their path, then, you know, it’s a win.”

Giving back and encouraging local talent, as well as students, is a big theme at the festival. The Thursday festivities also included a “Working in film and animation from Florida” panel.

It featured Satellite Beach resident Jaimie Engle, 49, who wrote a book that’s an origin story of Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter that’s been bought by DreamWorks.

Tampa resident Kevin Riley, 55, of Channelside’s Riley Animation Studios, noted how Tampa used to be a much more financially sustainable place for artists to live.

“There were far more artists in the Channelside district 20 years ago than there are now,” he said. “Rents just skyrocketed. Some of the growth and development drove them out.”

For his part, Perkins wants the rest of the world to know Tampa’s ready to welcome artists. He’s already planning a way to promote the Tampa Animation Festival, and its potential film market, at the Cannes Film Festival next year. And maybe the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France as well, the most prestigious animation gathering in the world. Perkins dreams that one day the industry will view Annecy as the summer festival for animation, while Tampa will be its autumn destination.

Returning to his alma mater, Schiff thinks the sky’s the limit here for film.

“There’s something really special about this festival,” Schiff said. “And Tampa is such a fantastic city. You know, it just seems like it’s ripe to grow.”

©2026 Tampa Bay Times. Visit at tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.