Jeff Kurtti, a Disney historian who has written more than 40 books on the company and whose erudite but approachable demeanor has made him the closest thing the Disney community has to a Robert Osborne, is crafting a new screening series for the Frida Cinema.
Located in Santa Ana, California, it is Orange County’s only nonprofit arthouse theater. And we have the exclusive first details on Kurtti’s series, which celebrates Disney’s rich history of big screen storytelling, complete with guest speakers and exclusive programming.
The inaugural Walt Disney Studies film series begins on Sept. 27 with a screening of 1954’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” with a conversation between Kurtti and Kevin Kidney, who Disney fans will know as one of the designers of your favorite piece of Disney merchandise (among many other things) and concludes on Nov. 29 with a double-feature of the terrific 2009 documentary “Walt and El Grupo” (about Walt’s wartime visit to South America) and “Saludos Amigos,” one of the package films that came out of that journey. The double-feature will be accompanied by a conversation between Kurtti and Theodore Thomas, the son of legendary Disney animator Frank Thomas and the director of “Walt and El Grupo.”…