At a glance

Zoom: Family Film Festival Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N. High St. 614-292-3535, www. wexarts.org the movie — another important experience for young viewers.

“It gives it an immediacy it doesn’t have otherwise,” Stults said. “It seemed like a way to round out the fairy tale.”

Fairy tales play an important role in the 2017 Zoom festival, which opened last weekend with screenings of “Sleeping Beauty” (1959) using a 70-mm print.

Also screening will be “Ivan Tsarevitch and the Changing Princess: Four Enchanting Tales,” a collection of tales by French animator Michel Ocelot, and “The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales,” by Oscar-nominated animator Benjamin Renner. Both programs are in French with English subtitles.

Columbus-area children will have their say in “The Preschool Poets: An Animated Film Series.” Central Ohio poet Nancy Kargas, who has been teaching preschoolers to write poetry, chose eight of her favorites and had artists create animation as children read the poems. Kargas co-directed the movie with area filmmaker Josh Kun.

Also screening will be “Whale Rider,” a movie from New Zealand about a girl struggling to find her role in her Maori tribe.

The New York Children’s Film Festival supplied the movies for Kid Flix Mix, a program of colorful short animated films meant for preschool children, and Party Mix, which are aimed at slightly older children.

Interspersed among the screenings will be a cerealand-pajama party, crafts and an ice-cream social.

Although most of the programs span 70 minutes or less — to cater to shorter attention spans — the breaks are important.

“The adults like it as much as the kids, really,” Pitman said. “We all like taking breaks and shifting gears.

“lt’s great to be able to do that all together, at all ages — including grandparents, aunts and uncles, and little ones, too.”

“The