You might not expect to find Alana Gishlick in an audience of movies for young people. A senior specialist at the American Museum of Natural History, Gishlick isn’t a parent. Nevertheless, for the past 16 years, she and her husband have been enthusiastically attending the annual New York International Children’s Film Festival, which opens on Saturday for a three-weekend run at four Manhattan theaters. On the menu: 13 features and more than 70 short films.
So what draws the couple to a festival screening? “It’s ultimately the quality of the story that it’s telling,” Gishlick said.
This year, she will be there as more than a fan. Gishlick and Carl Mehling, a colleague who also works in the museum’s paleontology department, will lead a discussion of Marcel Barelli’s “Mary Anning,” a Belgian-Swiss animated feature inspired by the real girlhood of its subject, an intrepid 19th-century British paleontologist who made her first discoveries as a child. (The film screens on Sunday and on March 7; the talk is scheduled for the second showing.) Gishlick said she hoped viewers would conclude that in the field of “women paleontologists, there are more of us out there than people may think.”
By appealing to adults and adolescents as well as the very young, the festival stands out from its peers. Founded in 1997, it is also one of the country’s largest of its kind and among the few that is Oscar-qualifying. (The short films that win prizes from its adult jury are eligible to compete for Academy Awards.)
“We look at the media landscape, and we see what’s missing for kids,” said Maria-Christina Villaseñor, the festival’s programming director, in a recent interview. The festival then tries to fill the gap.
In this year’s edition, that has led to subjects like women in science. In addition to “Mary Anning,” the festival’s opening weekend includes “Space Cadet,” an animated feature from the Canadian filmmaker Kid Koala. This dialogue-free adventure offers both rip-roaring battles with bloblike aliens and a tender contemplation of love and loss as it examines the relationship between an orphaned young astronaut and the robot who reared her. On March 15, Emily Rice, an astronomer, will host a Q&A at the film’s second screening.
Villaseñor said the festival’s mission “has always been to foster a more intelligent and more diverse film culture for young audiences.” That rule applies whether a selection comes from a major Hollywood studio or an independent director in Croatia.
The festival this year has turned a spotlight on Indigenous peoples. The live-action documentary “Remaining Native” chronicles how Ku Stevens, a high school track star with college ambitions, strives to reconcile his imminent departure from his Paiute community in Nevada with his desire to honor the legacy of his great-grandfather, who as a child escaped from one of the country’s notorious Indian boarding schools.
This feature by Paige Bethmann, who will lead a post-screening discussion, complements the festival’s debut of Native Stories, a continuing program of short films. Its 10 selections range from “Akababuru: Expression of Astonishment,” Irati Dojura Landa Yagarí’s live-action, myth-based film about the Embera Chami people of Colombia, to “Pow!,” Joey Clift’s animated short about a video-game-obsessed Native American boy whose parents drag him to a powwow.
“One of the things that was really important to me with ‘Pow!’ was to tell a story that was like the Looney Tune shorts and Pixar shorts that I loved as a kid, but from a very specific Northwest Native perspective,” said Clift, a comedian, writer and member of the Cowlitz Indian tribe, who will also host a Q&A.
In March, the Native Stories program will travel throughout New York State, and, in the fall, it will begin a two-year nationwide tour. (Other festival shorts programs, including ¡Hola Cine! and Celebrating Black Stories, also travel around the country.)
“It really felt like this is an area where we can be game changers through media,” Villaseñor said, noting that “Native Stories” will remind young viewers that Indigenous cultures are still vibrant while also helping them find their own connections to the subject.
Struggles for understanding and journeys of discovery are threads in many of the films. A preview of Daniel Chong’s animated feature “Hoppers,” on Saturday, introduces a girl who can transfer her consciousness to a robotic beaver and communicate with live members of the species. That Pixar film features a comic ecological odyssey, while the live-action drama “Ghost School,” by the writer and director Seemab Gul, tackles government corruption as it follows a 10-year-old Pakistani girl on a quest to continue her education.
“I hope it inspires young girls to fight for what they believe in,” said Gul, who will host a Q&A.
The collective viewing experience and guest presenters — more than 30 this year — heighten the films’ effect on children, Nina Guralnick, the festival’s executive director, said.
“The way that we’re engaging our audience,” she added, “is sending a message to kids that they are valued, that we see them, that we know what they are capable of.”
New York International Children’s Film Festival Feb. 28-March 15; 212-349-0330; nyicff.org.
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