The award-winning Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast premiered while unfinished at the New York Film Festival.

Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that produces animated feature films and short films for the Walt Disney Company. The studio's current production logo features a scene from its first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928). Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney after the closure of Laugh-O-Gram Studio, it is the longest-running animation studio in the world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. Since its foundation, the studio has produced 63 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)—which is also the first hand drawn animated feature film—to Moana 2 (2024), and hundreds of short films.

Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated musical romantic fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Based on the French fairy tale, it was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise from a screenplay written by Linda Woolverton, and produced by Don Hahn. Set in 18th-century France, an enchantress transforms a selfish prince into a monster as punishment for his cruelty. Years later, a young woman, Belle, offers the Beast her own freedom in exchange for her father's. To break the spell, the Beast must earn Belle's love before the last petal falls from his enchanted rose, lest he remain a monster forever. Beauty and the Beast stars the voices of Paige O'Hara and Robby Benson as Belle and the Beast, respectively, with a supporting cast comprising Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, Jesse Corti, Rex Everhart, Jo Anne Worley, and Angela Lansbury.

The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF is one of the longest-running and most prestigious film festivals in the United States. It is a non-competitive festival centered on a "Main Slate" of typically 20–30 feature films, with additional sections for experimental cinema and new restorations.