2026 Princess Grace Award
Stephen Hillenburg Animation Honor
Nominated by: New York University, Tisch School of the Arts
Samuel Wright Smith is a filmmaker, animator, documentarian, cinematographer and multidisciplinary artist. Their animation directing work has shown at festivals including Palm Springs ShortFest, DOCNYC, Rooftop Films and SIFF. Samuel is a UFO Short Film Lab and NYU Tisch Film/TV alumni. They have received grants from organizations including NYSCA, BRIC and Inwood Artworks. Samuel’s cinematography work has appeared at festivals such as Tribeca, Nashville Film Festival, and recently in the SXSW Short Narrative Special Jury Winner “Supper”.
Samuel’s current project is a collection of anonymous voicemails left following the prompt: “leave a voicemail for somebody no longer in your life”. Messages are woven into a 10-minute watercolor-animated celebration of community, grief, and love. Their previous project, Embodied, was a collection of conversations with terminally ill individuals receiving psychedelic-assisted end-of-life care.
