An Evening With Brenda Chapman & Kevin Lima | 2025

BRENDA CHAPMAN started her career as a story artist at Walt Disney Feature Animation in 1987, where she worked on several animated films including The Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Oscar nominated Beauty and the Beast. Brenda was the story supervisor on the original The Lion King, for which she won ASIFA’s Annie Award.

Brenda then helped launch DreamWorks Animation Studios, and co-directed the 1998 release of the Oscar winning Prince of Egypt. She also developed several projects at DWA and consulted on Shrek, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron among others.

Joining Pixar Animation Studios in September 2003, Brenda created, wrote and directed Brave – inspired by her relationship with her daughter – for which she won an Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. 

Her live-action debut, Come Away, starring David Oyelowo and Angelina Jolie, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

KEVIN LIMA worked on many of the films of the Disney’s renaissance including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin before taking the director’s chair on A Goofy Movie and Tarzan.

In 2000, Kevin made his live-action feature film debut with 102 Dalmatians, then the TV movies Eloise at the Plaza and Eloise at Christmastime for which he won the Director’s Guild of America award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children’s Programs.  His film, Enchanted was the joyous culmination of all of Lima’s filmmaking experiences in live-action and animation.

Currently, Kevin and his wife, Brenda Chapman, have combined their talents, developing and writing a slate of diverse projects across all media and platforms.

Lima is represented by David Saunders at IAG and Farhad Amid at McKuin Frankel Whitehead LLP.