From 1985 to 2001, Los Angeles film executive Peter Schneider worked at the Walt Disney studios. When he arrived there, the company had been struggling creatively since founder Walt Disney’s death in 1966.

“I got there just as they were releasing ‘The Black Cauldron,’ arguably the worst movie in the Disney canon,” Schneider said by phone from L.A. recently.

But soon, things improved drastically at Disney, with a new string of animated hits: “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” “Lion King” and more.

Collaborating with director Don Hahn, also a Disney veteran, Schneider chronicles the Disney Renaissance of the late ’80s and early ’90s in the new documentary, “Waking Sleeping Beauty.”

“The movie really chronicles this whole issue of why do things happen, and what were the circumstances and the people that made it all come together,” Schneider said.

Schneider, former president of feature animation for Disney as well as former chairman of Walt Disney Studios, will attend two screenings of the film, at 4 and 7 p.m. Thursday, May 20, at Rialto Cinemas Lakeside, 551 Summerfield Road, Santa Rosa. He’ll answer questions from the audience after both showings and introduce the second showing.

Admission: $7-$10. 525-4840, rialtocinemas.com.

The film not only focuses on the movers and shakers at Disney during that era — Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Walt’s nephew, Roy Disney — but also animators and directors who left the company and found success on their own, including Don Bluth, Tim Burton and a young intern named John Lasseter.

“John Lasseter was there and he was let go right when I got there. The atmosphere at the studio was not very progressive then,” Schneider said.

Lasseter, who now lives in Sonoma, went on to start the phenomenally successful Pixar company and ultimately became head of Disney animation.