Disneyland Documentary Double Feature

Up next in our Walt Disney Studies series is a pair of remarkable documentaries from renowned director Leslie Iwerks that tell the story of Disneyland in two directions: the influence of film design professionals on the building of Disneyland, and how Disneyland has in turn impacted and influenced film professionals over seven decades. During the interval between the features, there will a discussion moderated by Disney Historian Jeff Kurtti entitled Disneyland: Creation and Innovation, featuring authors Roland Betancourt and Thomas K. Morris, and dovetails the concepts of the two films with the viewpoints and expertise of these scholars, their careers, and their authoritative books. After the screening, Dr. Betancourt’s book, Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth, will be available for purchase in the theatre for the author to sign. Disneyland Handcrafted documents the exhilarating year that gave rise to The Happiest Place on Earth. Assembled entirely from rare archival footage and original audio recordings, this film reveals the extraordinary artistry, grit and pressure it took hundreds of craftspeople to build Walt Disney’s impossible dream into a reality, from groundbreaking to Opening Day. Disney Worldbuilders goes behind-the-scenes of how movies and franchises such as Frozen, Zootopia, and more are turned into immersive worlds across the global Disney parks. James Cameron, Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau, Pete Docter, Jennifer Lee and Jared Bush are among the filmmakers who feature in the documentary. Tom Morris is a former creative development executive at Walt Disney Imagineering who guided groundbreaking projects for over 30 years, including the original Journey into Imagination at EPCOT Center, Fantasyland at Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland. His book, Walt Disney Imagineering: In the Beginning 1952–1955 will be published by the Hyperion Historical Alliance Press in 2027. Roland Betancourt is the Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow. His most recent book is Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth, out earlier this year with Princeton University Press. All schedule details and speaker lineups are tentative and subject to change without notice.

Director

Leslie Iwerks

Year

2026

Runtime

137 minutes