Jurys

For almost thirty years Steven Appleby created, wrote and drew obsessive, surreal and personal comic strips for many newspapers including: New Musical Express, Guardian, Observer, The Times, Telegraph, Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
He has also written a BBC radio drama series; had his character Captain Star animated for television; published around 30 books; exhibited paintings and prints in many exhibitions; contributed drawings to the sleeve of Pixies album “Tromp Le Monde” and seen his secret world adapted for the stage as the musical play “Crocs in Frocks”. His latest book “Dragman”, has been published in the UK, America, Holland, Germany and France – where it won the Prix Spécial du Jury at the Angoulême Comic Festival, 2021. Steven began living full time as a trans-person in 2008.

Renaud Armanet is a director of animation and fiction and an instructor at renowned film schools. He is also a musician and composer. In order to be independent and protect his creative freedom, he founded tigoboANIMATIONstudios, where he creates films from screenplay to music composition. His work has been successfully screened at numerous film festivals worldwide. The production of an animated TV special with France Télévisions is currently in the works. With his school for image and sound, the Tigobo Art School, he wants to help other artists find their own form of artistic expression.
Armanet has released several music albums (including “FARIDOG” in collaboration with artists from Cirque du Soleil), organised ARnimaTion
exhibitions in Cannes and, together with Flavie Darchen, organises the “Meet Ze Artists” event in Cannes. Based on this experience, he founded the first animation film festival in Cannes in 2021.

Joanna Quinn discovered animation at Middlesex University London while studying for a BA degree in Graphic Design. Her graduation film “Girls Night Out”, a brilliantly simple and humorous riposte to machismo and a celebration of uninhibited female sexuality, introduced audiences to the character of Beryl and kick-started Joanna Quinn’s animation career by winning three major awards at Annecy. The uniquely memorable character of Beryl became the focus for two more films: “Body Beautiful, Dreams & Desires – Family Ties” and the most recent BAFTA & OSCAR® nominated “Affairs of the Art”. Joanna Quinn’s films have won just about every major international award, including BAFTAs, Emmys and three OSCAR® nominations. Joanna is
a committed educator and has received Honorary Fellowships and Doctorates at four UK Universities including the Royal College of Art.

Thomas Renoldner was born into a Catholic doctor’s family in the steel city of Linz in 1960 and already in his youth – infected, among other things, by subcultural spaces of freedom at the Stadtwerkstatt in Linz – took refuge in the fantasy world of art: drawing, painting, music, installation, and performance have been his fields of activity since 1976, which later merged in the medium of film. To date, he has made around 25 short films in the areas of experimental and animated film, music video and documentary. His last film “DONT KNOW WHAT” was shown at 100 festivals and received 25 awards. He is also a cultural worker, curator, festival director, workshop instructor, researcher, and has been the director of the laboratory for animated film at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna for 15 years.

Anna Samo was born in Moscow and moved to Berlin in 2006. On her first animation job she witnessed how thousands of separated drawings put together, suddenly turn into a living character. She experienced the tickling feeling of surprise and wonder. This feeling has not left her ever since. Anna studied animation at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. As an independent filmmaker she uses a variety of analog animation techniques to create emotional and poetic work. Her most recent films “OBON, The Opposites Game” and “Conversations with a Whale” have been screened and awarded at film festivals around the world. In 2021 Anna was granted the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship. Together with her family she currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

François Chalet worked as a graphic designer and illustrator until he realised his first animation for MTV Alarm in 1998. He worked for the agency Prima Linea Productions in Paris and for clients such as Expo.02 in Switzerland, Nuit Blanche in Paris, or Modeselektor in Berlin. From 2005 Chalet expanded the linear formats and confronted his animations with performative and installation-based arts. He worked with the dance company Thomas Duchatelet and with director Volker Hesse. In 2019, he staged a 360-degree projection in Lucerne’s water tower. From 2008 to 2010, Chalet was head of the animation bachelor’s programme at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and has since been lecturing in expanded animation.
He worked on animated artificial intelligence, cooperated with the National FiIm Board of Canada, and initiated a project with ETH Zurich in the field of augmented reality and animation, which will be completed this year

Flavie Darchen is a director, animator, chairwoman of the OKAOU association and artistic director of the tigoboANIMATIONstudios. The OKAOU association aims to introduce children to animation. As director and artistic director for the various projects produced at tigoboANIMATIONstudios, she also creates animated films for the stages of many Parisian theatres that are used in a variety of performances and stage concepts. She is also a lecturer for the Tigobo Art School as well as for many international art schools. Flavie Darchen is currently working on her next animated short film “Le Balcon”. With the OKAOU association, she has been organising the
international event “Meet Ze Artists”, professional meetings around film and animation in Cannes, for more than ten years.

Aneta Ozorek is the Artistic Director of Kaboom Animation Festival (Amsterdam/Netherlands). Next to that Aneta Ozorek has extensive industry experience as a curator and organiser of film events, educational workshops, exhibitions, and festivals in the European market. She is head of the shorts section of CEE Animation Forum Pitching, a member of the board of REX Animation Film Festival (Sweden) and the Short Film Conference. She served on several juries of international film festivals over the last years including Fantoche (Baden/Switzerland), interfilm Festival Berlin, Berlinale Generation Kplus or Spektrum Film Festival (Świdnica/Poland). Aneta Ozorek is also a member of the European Children’s Film Association and the illustrator of six children’s books.

Jan-Dirk Bouw is a Dutch director and screenwriter, with a background in art, graphic design and LGBTQ+ activism. Since 2008 he mainly
focusses on hybrid productions of animation and documentary. His films are characterized by outsider perspectives on relevant social questions,
with a humanitarian and emotional depth.
Bouw’s short animated documentary “I Love Hooligans” (2013) was selected by over 210 festivals worldwide and won numerous international
prizes. With his animated documentary “Breaking Walls” Bouw was selected for ESoDoc-European Social Documentary 2015, and has reached its
pre-production phase.
“Outsider” a hybrid project of animation, art brut, documentary and installation-art was selected for Anidox:LAB 2018, and is currently in
development / pre-production.

Romy Roolf has been producing animated films and series since 1995. Before starting at MotionWorks in Halle in 1998, she worked for the CineVox group of companies in production and world sales (“Die unendliche Geschichte” animated series, “Hänsel und Gretel im Zauberwald”, “Lorenz
im Land der Lügner”). Prior to this, she gained experience at Lightview Entertainment Los Angeles, Studio Hamburg and as Managing Director of
Video Vision Berlin. At MotionWorks (since October 2021 MideuFilms) she was responsible for international co-productions including the feature
films “Mullewapp” I & II, the series “ Die Abenteuer des jungen Marco Polo” I & II, “I got a Rocket” (Emmy Award) and most recently the hybrid feature film “Coppelia” (Best Feature Cambridge Film Festival). Romy Roolf has been a freelance producer since March 2022.

In his role in entertainment brand marketing for the animation studio LAIKA from 2007 to 2019, Mark Shapiro worked on the publicity campaigns for five Oscar-nominated feature films: “Coraline”, “ParaNorman”, “The Boxtrolls”, “Kubo and the Two Strings” and “Missing Link”. Before his time with LAIKA, he managed PR and communications for Nike and also worked for the diversity leadership programme of Monster.com with a number of clients. Last year he was a mentor in publicity and marketing for SxSW Film in Austin, Texas. Mark Shapiro serves on the Klamath Film Board of Directors (Oregon) and curates animated film programming at festivals around the world. A native of Seattle, he received his BA (English) from Colorado College and completed education studies at Lewis & Clark College. He is a partner and co-founder of Metolius Marketing, LLC where his client list includes Baobab Studios.