Happy Valley Animation Festival (6)

Festival start: 26 March 2026      Festival end: 28 March 2026

The Happy Valley Animation Festival takes place in State College, PA (Happy Valley) and is an open international animation competition that seeks to showcase animated works in a range of categories. HVAF is screened and exhibited locally and throughout the Pennsylvania State University (University Park) as well as online. We encourage submissions by students, early career, and practicing professional artists, designers, and filmmakers in any of the three categories that include: Animated Short Films, Experimental Animation, and Animated Motion Graphics & Design.

HVAF is a collaboration between organizers and volunteers and is sponsored by the Digital Arts & Media Design (DART) Program and the School of Visual Arts at Penn State, and the Animation Club at Penn State.

Laurel recognition awarded to winner, finalist, and honorable mention in the following categories:

Animated Short Films Under 4 Minutes (Open and Student Categories)

Recognizes Animated Shorts under 4 Minutes that deliver the best style, creativity, and content.

Animated Short Films (Open and Student Categories)
Recognizes Animated Shorts over 4 Minutes that deliver the best style, creativity, and content.

Animated Motion Design (Open and Student Categories)
Recognizes Animated Motion Design, Motion Graphics, Visual Effects and related CG/Animation intensive media works that deliver the best style, creativity, and content.

Experimental Animation (Open Category)
Recognizes Experimental Animated works that delivers the best style, creativity, and content.

Animated Documentary (Open Category)
Recognizes Animated Documentary works that deliver the best style, creativity, subject, and storytelling approach.

To qualify for HVAF, your submission should meet the following requirements:

• Your film meets the category specified type/genre requirements and runtime duration.

• Limit of two submissions per director, artist, designer, or collaborative team per category.

• Submissions must adhere to ethical practices, including respecting intellectual property rights, proper licensing, and responsible use of AI-generated content. It is expected that directors/submitters attain all of the respective copyrights and permissions required for their film prior to submitting. This includes all music, sound effects, product placement, actor/model release forms, etc. Animations without these rights will not be eligible to be screened or exhibited.

• Human creativity should remain central to the filmmaking/animation process. Only minimal use of AI is permitted. Filmmakers are required to clearly disclose the extent and nature of AI tools used in their submissions.

• While animations of any completion date may be submitted, those completed within the past two years will receive priority consideration.

• Entries should only be entered into a single category. Choose the category that best represents your film. If we think your work should be considered in a category other than the one to which it has been submitted, we will re-assign its category.

• Upon submission of your work, you acknowledge you have permission/rights to submit the work, authorize the screening and exhibition of your work at HVAF events, and agree to above terms & conditions