Competition Programme

Elli Vuorinen graduated from the animation department at Turku Arts Academy in 2011. Her film Sock Skewer Street 8 (2013) started off as a graduation film but was finished in the prestigious Animation Artist in Residence Tokyo 2013. Sore Eyes for Infinity is Elli Vuorinen’s latest short film. It was produced by Pyjama Films animation studio that she co-founded and where she works as an animation director, animator and graphic designer.

Jadwiga Kowalska was Born in 1982 in Bern, Switzerland. She studied animation and illustration at the HSLU (Hochschule Luzern, Kunst & Design) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. She has received numerous awards for her films and picture book, notably at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival and the Swiss Film Prize Quartz 2009 for the best animation film for Tôt ou tard (2008) and at the Locarno Film Festival for The Bridge Over the River (2016).

After graduating from the Fine Arts University of Lisbon, Alexandra and Laura begin working in animation film in 2009. Since then, their paths have always been professionally intertwined. They are two of the six founding members of BAP- Animation Studio, a Cooperative of animation authors, which since 2013 has been their nest for developing and making films, along side other internationally recognised authors. Together they made the films Água Mole (2017) and Percebes (2024). Individually: Alexandra directed Elo (2020) and Laura directed Three Weeks in December (2012) and The Garbage Man (2022).

Jan Blitzer is a filmmaker & co-founder of Woodblock Animation Studio. He is an alumni of Germany’s Filmakademie BW where he co-founded the Polynoid collective and directed 458nm and Loom. His awards include a Golden Nica at Ars Electronica, Best-in-Show at Siggraph and a VES Award.

Johnnie Semerad was a founder of the QuietMan, an innovative company with many firsts: the first Beatles music video, the first prime time Emmy for a tv commercial, the first five second tv commercials. QuietMan has won virtually every advertising award, Emmys and even a Grammy. They’ve worked on over 150 Super Bowl commercials. Johnnie has directed many television commercials, live action and animation.

Francis Canitrot is a French artist who worked for various studios such as Digital Banana, Autour de Minuit, La Cachette, and La Station Animation, gaining experience in 2D animation, 3D animation, and stop-motion on projects such as I lost My Body, A Town Called Panic, Primal, and more.

Bianca Caderas (1990) from Basel and Kerstin Zemp (1993) from Lucerne, successfully completed their Bachelor in Animation 2D at the Lucerne School of Art & Design in 2017 with their short film Living Like Heta (co-directed with Isabella Luu). Both moved abroad for several years after graduating: Bianca to Hamburg for her film studies and Kerstin worked in Ireland as a freelance illustrator and animator. In 2020, Bianca completed her writer-director’s film Jeroboam, which was made in collaboration with Kerstin. Matta and Matto is their second short film, which they directed together.

Former student of the School of Animated Film of Angoulême, Boris Labbé has created works that have been seen around the world, in contemporary art exhibitions, international film festivals and audiovisual concerts He received over fifty awards, including the Animafest Zagreb Grand Prix and the Golden Nica Award at Ars Electronica. He is currently developing a virtual reality project (Ito Meikyu, Sacrebleu Productions) and a video scenography (Glass House, produced by Ensemble Cairn).

Zohar Dvir is an animation director and lecturer, creating animated work inspired by some of the bigger questions of philosophy and psychology. Her distinctive animation style is self-taught, and blends two and three-dimensional elements as well as a healthy dose of surrealism. It’s mixed together with a sense of off-kilter humor, which adds a unique kind of playfulness to her work.

Veljko Popovic (1979) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Department of Painting, in 2003. He is the co-founder of Prime Render animation studio. Since 2012, he teaches animation at the Arts Academy in Split.

Milivoj Popovic (1979) graduated from the Arts Academy in Split, Department of Sculpting, in 2014. He is the co-founder of Prime Render animation studio. Since 2012, he has exhibited at numerous exhibitions in Croatia and internationally.

Alice Saey is a graphic artist and animation director. Her work focusses on poetic and graphic forms of narration, in the fields of design and film.  Since she graduated from a graphic design Masters in HEAR (Strasbourg, FR), she animated music videos for various clients including Arte, Centre Pompidou, Socialter. In the summer of 2023, Alice co-founded animation collective TINSEL with her studio mates Wiep Teeuwisse and Nienke Deutz.

Sara Naves is a film director and 2D animator from Portugal, working on international short and feature films, having also participated in children’s TV series and illustrated books. Sara concluded her BA(HONS) in Animation Production in 2009 in England, at the Arts University College at Bournemouth, in traditional animation and film directing. She works at the University of Algarve since 2012, teaching 2D animation, character and background design, and film production.

Delia Hess studied animation at the Lucerne School of Art and Design in Switzerland. Since her graduation in 2012 she has been working independently on her own short film projects as well as on commissioned films and illustrations. She lives and works in Lucerne.

Alexandra Myotte and Jean-Sébastien Hamel are a duo of writers-directors based in Montreal. Their award-winning animated short films and web series have been featured in numerous festivals around the globe.

Inés Sedan was born in Argentina. She is a painter, animator and clarinet player. Her first short film The Man who Slept (2009) won more than twenty awards in international festivals, among which the SBS Special Award at Cannes Festival in 2010. Her two next films, Me (2012) and El Canto (2013), have also been selected in many festivals worldwide.

Born in 1991, Cynthia Calvi studied at EMCA in Angoulême, where she directed her first animated documentary, Tournée (2015), before joining the En sortant de l’école collection in Lille, where she directed the short film Le portrait modèle (2018). She then joined the management team of the Train-train studio, which contributed to the making of Gigi (2023), produced by Xbo Films, in collaboration with Studio des Affranchis in Toulouse.

The pseudo-marxist media guerilla Total Refusal explores and practices strategies for artistic intervention in contemporary video games. Their films and performances were presented among others at Berlinale ‘20, Locarno 22 and at the MoMA in NYC and they have received more than 46 international and national awards and honorary mentions. The current members of Total Refusal are: Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner & Michael Stumpf.

Nina Gantz is a Dutch London-based Animation Director. She graduated from the National Film and Television School with her film Edmond which received 38 awards including a BAFTA and the Sundance award for Best Animated Short. Nina currently works as a freelance director and is signed to the production company BlinkInk.

Young Chan Jeon was born in South Korea. He lives in Los Angeles, USA, works as a storyboard artist.

Victor Monigote, self-taught multidisciplinary artist, cartoonist, musician and actor. Trained as a director working for more than 20 years alongside great film and advertising directors. With great experience in art direction (nominated for the Goya awards for Mortadelo y Filemón contra Jimmy el cachondo), his first film as a director was La Gallina Turuleca (winner of the Goya and Platinum awards for best animated film).

Oscar nominated filmmaker, university professor and head of KEDD Animation Studio, Géza M. Tóth, works in several artistic fields: producer and director of short films (Icarus, Maestro, Ergo, Mama) and animation tv series (Berry and Dolly, The Kuflis). He also works as a director and visual designer for theater and operas (The Ring Cycle, The Miraculous Mandarin, The Bluebeard’s Castle), illustrating books, lecturing, scriptwriting.

Jean-Luc Gréco and Catherine Buffat first met at the Folimage studio in the 1990s, where each of them took their initial steps in the world of animated filmmaking. As artists, they both discovered a shared universe and similar influences. In 1998, they created their first short film, La Bouche cousue (Keeping Mum). The duo skillfully navigates between different techniques, from puppetry to cut-out animation.

Toms Burāns is known for The Fairytale of Empty Space (2017), Mara (2014) and My Favorite War (2020).

Born and raised in Italy, Alessandro Novelli is a creative and animation director who works in both the advertising world and the animated short film industry. After studying graphic and digital design in Turin and New York, he began his career as a designer at the firm Superfad in New York. He moved between different studios in both the EU and the US, working in different roles, until he finally opened his own studio, Newgold, a design and animation-oriented studio, focusing on the intersection between commercial animation and short films.

Begoña Arostegui holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country. She has been working in the animation industry for almost twenty years, serving as an animator and background artist for various animation production companies, including Imira Entertainment and Anima Kitchent (PINY Institute of New York). In this field, her most recent work was in the art department of Pablo Berger's latest feature film, Robot Dreams (2023), nominated for the Oscar Academy Award for Best Animation.

Ellis Kayin Chan is a Barcelona based Hong Kong animation director, animator and a visual artist. He gradurated from Gobelins l'école de l'image in 2018.

Jay Hiukit Wong is a Hong Kong animation director, animator, illustrator and comic artist. He graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Digital Media.

Rastko Kukić was born in 1980. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. He deals with digital graphics, 2D and 3D animation.

Alexandr Khramtsov was born in 1971 in Moscow, USSR. He studied at SHAR Studio School. Alexandr has worked in the film industry as a director and an artist.

Rémi Durin  was born in 1982, in France. Graduated from the ENSAV La Cambre animated film workshop. Since 2009, he has been teaching at the Albert Jacquard CG School in Namur. Remi Durin directed De si pres (2009), a moving tribute to the 1914-1918 war, and children’s films, The Unicorn (2016), and Big Wolf & Little Wolf (2018). He co-directed with Arnaud Demuynck, the musical comedy The Scent of Carrots (2014) and the feature film Yuku and the Himalayan Flower (2017).

Carla Melo Gampert (1993, Bogotá) is a visual artist who graduated from the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá and from the Film program at the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires. In addition to her work as a director, she curates audiovisual exhibitions such as Animación Porosa (Cinemateca de Bogotá, 2022). In La Perra, her first professional animated short, she continues her exploration about body and femininity.

Izabela Plucińska is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and Film Animation of the Cinematography Department at the Lodz Film School, where she also completed her PhD in the field of animation. She specialises in clay animation. Her filmography includes  Jam Session (2005), Esterhazy (2009), Sexy Laundry (2015), Portrait of Suzanne (2019). Currently she is a teacher at the Academy of Art in Szczecin, while at the same time she works at her own production company ClayTraces.

Sam Orti, born in Valencia, Spain, has devoted the last 20 years of his life to animation films specializing in stop-motion. His short films Encarna, The Werepig or Vicenta, as well as his feature film Pos eso, won numerous awards world wide.

Born in 1964, Koji Yamamura is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and is a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Nominated for an Oscar, his short Mt. Head won grand prizes and was selected for 100 Films for a Century of Animation. His first feature film Dozens of Norths won the Grand Prize at the Ottawa and the Annecy International Animation Film Festivals. In total, his films have won over 140 awards.

Nicolas Keppens studied film and animation at KASK Ghent and perfected his skills at the film academy of Luca School of Arts Brussels. His credits include the short films Superstars (2012), Wildebeest (2017) and Easter Eggs (2020), an animated short film about finding extraordinary things in ordinary places.

Ivan Popov “The Rabbit” is a film director and creative leader with 20+ years of experience in animation and advertising. He has worked on major campaigns for leading international brands, created animated shorts, and designed immersive visuals and SFX concepts for music videos and dance performances. His creative output includes more than 100 animated videos.

Ferdinand Ehrhardt is known for Obervogelgesang (2021), Toys Storage. The Animation Madness (2021) and Handbook for a Privileged European Woman (2021).