Cost
$25 members FREE for children ages 5 and under, Registration Required
Date
Tue, Dec 5 | 5:30pm
Year
2023
Location
Theater
Join us for an exclusive screening of Westward Walt (2023), a new documentary from Disney Legend Don Hahn that chronicles the incredible events that led Walt to open a Hollywood animation studio with his brother, Roy, 100 years ago. The film is narrated by Walt and Roy, who tell their own story through archival interviews and never–before-seen photography and film footage. The screening will be followed by a talk with Don Hahn about the making of and inspiration behind the film. The screening will be followed by a conversation about the making of and inspiration behind the film with Don Hahn and museum Executive Director Kirsten Komoroske.
On-Sale Information
Tickets for Westward Walt (2023) with Disney Legend and Director Don Hahn are available as follows:
- Walt’s Circle Donors: Purchase tickets beginning Tuesday, November 14 at noon PT by emailing membership@wdfmuseum.org.
- Supporter, Founding, and Friend-level members: Purchase tickets beginning Wednesday, November 15 at noon PT by emailing membership@wdfmuseum.org.
- All member levels: Purchase tickets online beginning Thursday, November 16 at noon PT via the Member Portal.
About the Speaker
Disney Legend Don Hahn has produced some of the most successful animated films of all time, including Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Beauty and the Beast (1991)—the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar®—and the global phenomenon The Lion King (1994).
He studied music and art before starting at Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1976 in the basement of the Ink & Paint Building where the old animation was stored. He soon worked for Disney Legend Woolie Reitherman, one of Walt Disney’s legendary “Nine Old Men,” who directed One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) and The Jungle Book (1967)—movies that Hahn idolized as a kid.
Hahn’s credits include The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Emperor’s New Groove (2000), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), and Maleficent (2014). Three of the films he helped to produce—Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and The Lion King (1994)—are now in the Library of Congress collection as culturally, historically, and esthetically important.
His Emmy®-winning documentary for PBS and festival-circuit hits on Disney+ include Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009), the seminal film about the Disney animation renaissance of the late-1980s through the 1990s, and Howard (2018), a biography on the life of influential songwriter and Disney Legend Howard Ashman. He was a founder and Executive Producer of several acclaimed Disneynature documentary film series.
Hahn serves on the advisory board of The Walt Disney Family Museum and is a former trustee of PBS SoCal. He has been honored with two Academy Award® nominations, an Emmy for his PBS documentary Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart, two Golden Globes® for Best Picture, and two Honorary Doctorate degrees. In 2022, he was inducted as a Disney Legend, awarded to those who have made extraordinary and integral contributions to The Walt Disney Company.