Sam Chegini’s claymation music video for British artist Marsha Swanson has won Best Experimental Animation at the 2026 New York Film Screening Festival and is set to screen in New York City this December.
Generational Transmission, the animated music video directed by Iranian filmmaker and animator Sam Chegini for British singer-songwriter Marsha Swanson, has won the Best Experimental Animation award at the 2026 New York Film Screening Festival.
The festival announced the award in September, confirming that the film will also be screened in New York City in December, with the final venue and screening date to be announced.
Created using frame-by-frame clay animation, Generational Transmission explores the ways trauma can pass from one generation to another. The film follows two clay characters, Clayton and Clayopatra, through a visual world shaped by memory, emotional inheritance and the possibility of breaking cycles carried across generations.
The project marked Chegini’s first major venture into claymation and became one of the most ambitious productions in his ongoing collaboration with Swanson. The film was developed and produced over several months, requiring the characters, sets and individual movements to be constructed and animated by hand.
Its production also unfolded under extraordinary circumstances. Parts of the film were created during the 2025 conflict involving Iran, while Chegini and his team continued working in the studio amid air-raid activity and the wider uncertainty surrounding them.
The experience gave the film’s central theme an unexpected immediacy.
“We were working on a traumatised character whose story was about the transmission of trauma while experiencing the reality of war around us,” Chegini said. “There were moments when we could hear aircraft and air defence while continuing to animate the film frame by frame. Winning an award in New York for a film created under those circumstances makes me think even more deeply about the contrast between conflict and the connections people continue to build through art.”
The award continues a growing international run for Generational Transmission and further extends the creative partnership between Chegini and Swanson, who have collaborated on a series of music videos combining live action, animation and experimental visual storytelling.
Chegini, founder of Sam Pictures Productions, has previously directed music videos and visual projects for artists including Jethro Tull, Chris de Burgh, Gentle Giant, Jakko M. Jakszyk, Sir Lenny Henry and others. His work has appeared through international broadcasters and publications including the BBC, MTV, PBS and Rolling Stone.
Generational Transmission will now return to New York as an award-winning film when it screens as part of the 2026 New York Film Screening Festival programme this December.
Further details regarding the screening venue and date are expected to be announced by the festival ahead of the event.