Festival Guests

Guests

Bram Algoed

Bram Algoed is an illustrator and cartoonist from Brussels. He studied animation at the Ghent School of Arts and comics at Sint-Lukas in Brussels. His publications include Na zondag was het opnieuw maandag and Assholes. When Bram isn’t drawing, he’s either out cycling or hiding in a cinema.

Rocio Alvarez

A truly multidisciplinary artist, Rocío Álvarez expresses himself through painting, illustration and animated film. In his work he likes to combine expressive strokes, vibrant textures and saturated colours. His short film Simbiosis Carnal (2017) was shown at many international festivals and won numerous awards.

Muriel Andrin

Muriel Andrin holds a PhD in cinema since 2001. She teaches in the performing arts master’s programme at Université libre de Bruxelles. Her books include "Maléfiques: Le Mélodrame filmique américain et ses héroïnes" (1940-1953) (2005) and "Cinéma en atelier" (Éditions du CVB/Graphoui, 2018).

Michael Arndt

American screenwriter Michael Arndt scored a hit with Little Miss Sunshine, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. His reputation grew further with his work on Toy Story 3 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Involved in such hits as Wall-E and Inside Out, he has been sharing his passion and expertise in the field of screenwriting through online courses for years.

Romain Blanc-Tailleur

After studying modern literature in Toulouse, Romain Blanc-Tailleur entered EnsAD. After a few years as a freelance director, he became an active member of the Toulouse studio La Ménagerie. Today, he writes and directs films and animation series, creates shows and composes music for the cinema.

Fabrice Blin

A lifelong film fan, Fabrice Blin, a director and scriptwriter of short and feature films, was editor of the magazine AnimeLand. He is also the author of several books on animation, including Les Mondes fantastiques de René Laloux, published in 2004, and L’Odyssée de ‘La Planète sauvage’ with Xavier Kawa-Topor.

Daniel Bruson

Daniel Bruson is an animation director and graphic artist from Brazil. His work encompasses film projects, music videos, illustration, commercials and animation courses. He recently directed the short films Pariah and Guaracy, the latter with Eliete Della Violla.

Francis Canitrot

After graduating from Supinfocom in 2012, Francis Canitrot worked as a VFX graphic designer and stop-motion set designer. It was his meeting with Jérémy Clapin in 2013 that made him want to make his own films. Since then, he has been developing his own projects while working regularly for Folivari, Xilam and La Station Animation.

Olivier Catherin

After initiating AFCA’s Fête du Cinéma d’animation, Olivier Catherin moved into production, co-founding Les Trois Ours. He then took charge of the animation network in the Hauts-de-France region, before becoming a freelance international producer with multi-award-winning titles under his belt such as Granny’s Sexual Life, Franzy’s Soup Kitchen, Steakhouse and Electra.

Claude Barras

Claude Barras is an animation director who also writes scripts and produces. Together with Cédric Louis, he founded the Hélium Films studio in Lausanne, with which he has co-directed several short films. In 2017 his film My Life as a Courgette won the César for Best Animated Film. He is currently completing his second feature film, Savages!

Jan De Coster

Jan De Coster has been designing and creating interactive installations since 1999. Over the past decade, he has focused on robots and their place in society. He has also worked as an artistic director and producer in the fields of research, advertising, education, theatre and culture.

Dario van Vree

Director, scriptwriter, teacher and producer Dario van Vree is also the co-founder of the KLIK! Amsterdam festival. He was its creative director from 2007 to 2012 and chair of the board until 2021. His latest film, I’m Perfectly Fine, is an adaptation of Maaike Hartjes’ graphic novel Burnout Diary.

Nienke Deutz

Director and animator Nienke Deutz likes to combine several animation techniques and narrative modes. Her films Bloeistraat 11 (2018) and The Miracle (2023) have been shown at more than 200 international festivals. In 2023 she founded Tinsel Studio, a collective dedicated to directing and producing independent animated films.

Franck Dion

A French illustrator and director, Franck Dion is the author of Mister Cok, Edmond Was a Donkey and The Head Vanishes (Cristal Award for best short film at Annecy in 2016). In 2018 he was awarded the prestigious SACD Animation Prize. Franck Dion also does mapping. His latest film, Astoria, is the result of this new experience.

Raman Djafari

Berlin-based illustrator and animator Raman Djafari explores emotion and fragility through colourful imagery and fragmented narratives, creating worlds and characters that are both real and imaginary. They have directed music videos for artists such as Elton John, Dua Lipa and Ashnikko, and have collaborated with Adult Swim and The New Yorker.

David Duriot

Producer David Duriot worked in the video game industry for five years before founding La Poule Noire in 2018, which has since released the games Edgar – Bokbok in Boulzac and To Hell With The Ugly. He works actively to create links between video games and animation. He also hosts the One Shot talks at the Fête de l’Anim’ in Angoulême every year.

Sepideh Farsi

Born in Tehran in 1965, Sepideh Farsi was arrested at the age of 16 and spent almost a year in prison. She settled in Paris in 1984 and studied mathematics. Her passion for photography and cinema soon took over, however. A committed artist, she has shot films (Tehran Without Permission, Red Rose, 7 Veils, Harat) in Iran, Afghanistan, India, Greece and France.

Benoît Feroumont

Born in 1969, Benoit Feroumont studied illustration and comics at Saint-Luc in Liège before turning to animation at La Cambre. Over time he has become an established animation artist and a recognized cartoonist. He worked as animation director on the development of the Oscar-nominated 2024 feature Robot Dreams.

Mouna Ferré

After graduating from art school, Mouna Ferré turned to the world of advertising and then video games. After a decade at Activision Blizzard, she is now vice-president of Creatives, the in-house creative agency of Scopely. She keeps up to date with market trends and technological advances.

Jon Frickey

Jon Frickey is an animation director and illustrator. With the production company SFA, which he co-founded with Till Penzek, he writes and animates for TV channels (Karambolage for Arte, Sesame Street for NDR and Kika). In 2018 his short film Cat Days qualified for the Academy Awards and the European Animation Awards. He has just completed Zoopticon.

Margherita Giusti

Margherita Giusti started out as a storyboard artist and assistant director on film and television sets in Rome. She graduated in 2020 from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Turin with the film En Rang Par Deux, co-directed with Elisabetta Bosco and Viola Mancini. She works freelance and with her own collective, Muta.

Valentin Grégoire

Valentin Grégoire founded Squarefish in 2011 with two partners. Initially specializing in motion design, the studio first positioned itself as a service provider in animation, then as a co-producer before developing its own projects. In 2023 it took part in the feature film Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds. It then went on to co-produce the series Lisa & Kolos on Canal+.

David Grumbach

David Grumbach is the owner and CEO of BAC Films and CINEMA SCA SICAR. BAC Films is a film distribution, international sales and production company that has been one of Europe’s leading independent studios since it was founded in 1986. BAC Films co-produced Sepideh Farsi’s animated feature The Siren.

Mascha Halberstad

A graduate of the ArtEZ Academy in Arnhem, Mascha Halberstad specializes in stop motion animation (series, shorts and features). In 2022 Oink, her first feature film, was selected for the Berlinale. In 2023 she directed her second feature in co-production with Belgium: Fox and Hare Save the Forest.

Maaike Hartjes

Amsterdam-based strip cartoonist and caricaturist Maaike Hartjes won the Stripschapprijs in 2016. In 2018 she published Burn-Out Dagboek, an illustrated diary inspired by her struggle with burnout. In 2023 she will be working as art director on the film adaptation by Studio Pupil titled I’m Perfectly Fine.

Steve Henderson

Steve Henderson is the director of the Manchester Animation Festival, the UK’s largest animation film event. In his spare time, he writes for Skwigly.com magazine, which he co-owns. He has a PhD in animation film archives and in British animated TV series for young audiences.

Hugh Welchman

Hugh Welchman started out in various film co-operatives in London before training at the National Film & Television School. The founder of BreakThru Films, he won an Oscar for Peter and the Wolf. Best known for Loving Vincent, co-directed with his wife Dorota Kobiela, the duo are back with a new film, The Peasants.

Jenny Jokela

Jenny Jokela is a Finnish film-maker and artist based in Edinburgh. A 2017 graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, her graduation film, Barbeque (2017), won several awards, including the Cristal for Best Graduation Film at the Annecy Festival. Jenny works as a freelance animation director.

Xavier Kawa-Topor

A historian, writer and artistic director, Xavier Kawa-Topor is the author of several reference works on animation. He heads NEF Animation, an association dedicated to research and creation in this field and the co-publisher of the magazine Blink Blank.

Nicolas Keppens

Nicolas Keppens studied animation at KASK Ghent and LUCA in Brussels. His short films Wildebeest and Easter Eggs were both screened at many international festivals, including Annecy, Fantoche, Animafest and more. His latest film is Beautiful Men. In his work, Nicolas opens doors to personal, daily themes. Keppens also makes sculptures and other handcrafted art.

Quentin L’helgoualc’h

Quentin L’helgoualc’h, a director from Lyons, combined live action and 3D animation in his early work. In collaboration with Ekiem Barbier and Guilhem Causse, he presented Marlowe Drive in 2017. He studied at Le Fresnoy (contemporary arts) from 2021 to 2023. His first feature documentary, Knit’s Island, has already won several awards.

Sébastien Laudenbach

Director, illustrator and teacher at ENSAD, Sébastien Laudenbach is the author of several critically acclaimed films. His feature film The Girl Without Hands was shown at Cannes and won an award at Annecy. His latest film, Chicken for Linda!, won the Cristal for Best Feature Film at Annecy and has been nominated for a César in 2024.

Jonghoon Lee

In 2005 Jonghoon Lee joined the animation department of the Korean School of Animation before moving on to the animation department of the Korea National University of Arts (K-ARTS). In 2015 he was among the founders of the prolific animation and visual-design studio VCRWORKS. Lee has just finished a 25-minute short, Architect A.

Chiara Malta

Chiara Malta has made several prize-winning short films, including a trilogy about childhood, which have been selected for many international festivals. Her first feature film, Simple Women, opened the Discovery section of the 2019 Toronto Film Festival. Chicken for Linda! is her first animated feature.

Monsieur Pimpant

Monsieur Pimpant teaches animation at the École de recherche graphique (ERG) in Brussels. He explores analogue and digital animation, alone or in collaboration with musicians and performers. His latest film, The Choolers: Meat and Fish, was made in collaboration with disabled people.

Eric Montchaud

A graduate of the first class of École de la Poudrière, Eric Montchaud’s short films Anatole’s Little Saucepan (2015) and A Stone in the Shoe (2020) have won numerous awards around the world, including at the prestigious Annecy Festival. He is currently making a new paper cut-out film entitled I Found a Box.

Elodie Moog

Élodie Moog started out as a sales agent at TV Paint. Since 2009 she has been teaching 2D animation software (Les Gobelins, CalArts, Beijing Film Academy, etc.) and providing technical support to animators and directors around the world (Pixar, Blue Sky, Cartoon Saloon, Lupus Film, Passion Pictures, etc.). In late 2018 she co-founded the start-up Praxinos.

Cyril Pedrosa

An established cartoonist, Cyril Pedrosa develops both contemporary drawing and animation projects. He has collaborated on the graphic design of feature films with Tomm Moore and Sébastien Laudenbach. He is currently working on his first animated feature, The Long Night, co-produced by Modern Magic (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and Miyu Productions.

Carlos Perez-Reche

Carlos Pérez Reche is a director and scriptwriter with experience in both live action (fiction) and animation. He directed the TV series Arròs Covat and Heavies Tendres, which served as the basis for the feature film he made with Joan Francesc Tomas Monfort.

Jérémie Périn

A graduate of the Gobelins animation school, Jérémie Périn worked for several animation studios before devoting himself to directing. In 2016 his Lastman series established him as a major reference in adult animation in France and abroad. Mars Express, his first feature film, was presented at the Cannes Festival and the Annecy Festival.

Julia Petroff

Julia Petroff studied different artistic disciplines: drawing, painting and animation. Her keen interest in colour study led her to work as a background colour artist on Benoît Chieux's feature film Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds. 

Michiel Philippaerts

Programme director and coordinator of short films for the Ghent Film Festival and a film critic, Michiel Philippaerts has contributed to the curation of several Ghent festivals. He was a member of the jury for the Visser-Neerlandia Screenplay Prize in 2018 and 2019 and joined the Short Film Commission of the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF) in 2021.

Pablo Pico

A multi-instrumentalist composer, Pablo Pico has composed the music for many animated films, including Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds, Mum Is Pouring Rain and Marona’s Fantastic Tale. He has also collaborated with artists such as Oxmo Puccino, Isabel Sörling and Arthur H.

Catherine Pineur

Catherine Pineur is a children’s author and illustrator published by L'École des loisirs - Pastel. Her book Va-t'en, Alfred! has been translated into Italian and Korean and was nominated for the UNICEF Prize in Children’s Literature. It has also been adapted for the stage by Teatro Gioco Vita and, most recently, for the cinema by Films du Nord as Pebble Hill.

Barry Purves

Barry JC Purves has been working in animation for more than 45 years, making award-winning short films and children’s series. He teaches animation around the world and has written two books on the subject. Barry also directs and designs for theatre and has his own classical music radio show.

Aline Quertain

Belgian writer and director Aline Quertain divides her time between writing personal projects (The Teeny-Weeny Fox in 2015, Wild Tale in 2023) and working on other people’s projects. She practises cut-out animation, paints in watercolour and makes puppets. She loves traditional techniques and cinema for young audiences.

Anne Raffin

The work of background artist and director Anne Raffin stands out on account of its varied settings, which range from the light atmosphere of The Swallows of Kabul to the dark tones of Crisis Jung and the realism of Japanese culture in Lastman. Her credits include Mars Express and the multi-award-winning Netflix series Love Death + Robots and Arcane.

Victor Rago

Víctor Rago is a Barcelona-based animation director who specializes in TV productions and advertising. His first film, Mironins, was a Belgian-Spanish co-production. His latest feature, Heavies Tendres, adapted from the animated series of the same name, was presented at the Annecy Festival in the Contrechamp category.

Julie Rembauville

Initially an author of children’s books, Julie Rembauville began making animated films with Nicolas Bianco-Levrin and in 2020 achieved international success with Kiki the Feather. Her latest film, Marcel, Santa Claus (and the Pizza Delivery Boy), is a modern Christmas musical co-produced by XBO Films and Canal +.

Benjamin Renner

A graduate of the Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême and La Poudrière, Benjamin Renner moves between comic strips and animated films. In 2012 he directed Ernest and Célestine and in 2017 adapted his comic strip The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales for the big screen. His latest film, Migration, produced by Illumination (The Minions), was released in December 2023.

Sonja Rohleder

Sonja Rohleder, animator and member of the Talking Animals collective since 2009, loves bringing colourful images to life, especially against a black background. A graduate in animation from the Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, she has made a number of award-winning short films and collaborated with international producers and artists.

Volker Schlecht

Volker Schlecht is a Berlin-based illustrator, artist and film-maker. He is the founder of the Drushba Pankow label. He teaches design at the University of Applied Sciences in Dessau, Germany (Hochschule Anhalt-Dessau). He is the director of The Waiting, a documentary about the disappearance of frogs in Costa Rica.

Catherine Totems

Catherine Totems graduated in 1983 from Penninghen (Paris). She has worked as a storyboard artist, illustrator and teacher. She set up and ran the animation department at Atelier de Sèvres until she left in 2022. Today, in addition to her artistic work, she carries out a variety of assignments for Emile Cohl Atelier, Gobelins and NEF Animation.

Sandra Trostel

Sandra Trostel is an independent film-maker, author and researcher based in Hamburg, Germany. Her work, which takes both an artistic and a scientific approach, focuses on the analysis of current and future social developments. Her documentaries have been shown at international film festivals as well as in cinemas and on television.

Marijke Van Kets

Marijke Van Kets is a director of photography. Having initially trained as an analogue artist, she gradually retrained as an expert in digital photography. She has worked on many feature films, music videos and commercials. As a stop-motion expert, she was responsible for the photography of Jim Capobianco's feature film The Inventor.

Dina Velikovskaya

Dina Velikovskaya trained in animation at the Russian Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and the SHAR School-Studio (Moscow). She gained international recognition with her films Ties (2019) and About a Mother (2015). Dina Velikovskaya has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (Oscars) since 2018. She lives and works in Berlin.

Kerstin Zemp

Kerstin Zemp comes from Lucerne in Switzerland, where she studied 2D animation until 2017. Her graduation film, Living Like Heta, was shown at several international festivals. She works freelance on commissioned illustration and animation projects. Her latest film, Matta and Matto, was co-directed with Bianca Caderas.

Kresimir Zubcic

A writer-buyer for Croatian Television (HRT) since 1989, Krešimir Zubčić is vice-chair of the board of Animafest, the World Festival of Animated Film Zagreb. He has sat on the jury of many prestigious international events, including the Emmy Awards for young audiences.