Jurys

In his more than 20-year career in the film and cinema industry, Anders Narverud Moen has had the opportunity to explore and deepen his love for film. With a B.A. in Cultural Management, he has always been close to the industry. In 2008, Anders Narverud Moen became a programme planner and film consultant for Norway’s largest cinema company. In 2012 he joined the Fredrikstad Animation Festival (FAF) and is now the longest serving director of the festival. The FAF is the oldest animation festival in Scandinavia and the place where Anders Narverud Moen was best able to develop his love for animation, festivals, and great art – a love that began in 1999 when he first volunteered at FAF. When not working for the festival, he can be found at cultural, musical and arts events.

Chiara Magri works for the National School of Cinema of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia as pedagogical coordinator and artistic director of the three-year animation programme since its creation in 2002 in Turin. She has been working in the field of animation since 1985 and is involved in editorial, curatorial and educational activities of the Italian branch of the Association Internationale du Film d’Animation (ASIFA), of which she was General Secretary from 1997 to 2002. She was a curator of programmes and exhibitions on animation and of the annual international event “Incontri Arte Animazione” at the Gallery of Modern Art (GAM) in Turin from 1999 to 2004, when she began to devote herself entirely to the animation school project. She co-directed surveys on the Italian animation industry for RAI, wrote for specialised publications and was a member of juries and selection committees for numerous international festivals.

Izabela Plucińska, born in Poland and currently living in Germany, has made around thirty films. She studied art and film and now combines her talents to create animated films. In 2005, her short film “Jam Session” won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Since then, the filmmaker has accomplished many projects and had much success. Her medium-length film “Esterhazy”, with its political and philosophical focus, was shown in many countries in 2009, including England, France, Finland, Hungary, and Mexico, and received several awards. In 2015, she completed “Sexy Laundry”, a co-production with the National Film Board of Canada. Currently, the Berlin resident is working with her partners on their own production company Clay Traces and on her new film “JOKO”, inspired by a short novel by Roland Topor.

Signe Baumane is a Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based independent filmmaker, artist, writer and animator. She has made 17 award-winning animated shorts but is best known for her first animated film “Rocks in my Pockets” which premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014 and won the FIPRESCI award. The film was screened at over 130 international festivals and had theatrical release in the US through Zeitgeist Film. Signe Baumane’s new animated film, “My Love Affair With Marriage” (2022), is about a spirited young woman’s search for perfect love and a lasting marriage. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2022 and was screened at over 60 festivals winning nine awards. Signe Baumane is a Guggenheim Fellow and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Film. She holds a degree in philosophy from Moscow State University.

Piotr Kardas (1984) is known as initiator and director of “Animation Across Borders” and the “O!PLA Animation Film Festival” (since 2013). In several dozen cities in Poland and abroad, he has been organising the “Rising of Lusitania – AnimaDoc Film Festival” in port cities such as Liverpool and Gdansk since 2019. He is co-creator and programme director of “CRAFT International Animation Festival” in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (since 2017) and the “International Futurological Film Festival Lodz”, Poland (since 2021). Further, he is coordinator of the “Polish chapter of the Polish-Slovenian StopTrik International Film Festival” in Lodz (since 2016) and co-creator of several other film festivals. He has been organising the “International Animation Day” in Poland since 2012, and also works as a curator and juror in Poland and abroad. Piotr Kardas studied Film Theory and New Media at the University of Lodz. From 2010 to 2012 he worked in Poland for Se-ma-for Film Production in Lodz and the “Ars Independent International Film Festival” in Katowice.

Sander Joon is a young film director from Estonia who has already won numerous awards for his animated films. His debut film “Velodrool” (2015) already made big waves and thrilled audiences at film festivals in Canada, Australia and France, with its black-humoured story of a cigarette addict. This was followed by “Moulinet” in 2017 and “Sounds Good” just a year later. His latest short, “Sierra” from 2022, represents his most personal and at the same time most successful film to date. Sander Joon also worked as a 2D artist for the multi-award-winning film “The Old Man Movie” in 2019. Since 2020, he has been teaching traditional animation at his former university, the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn, thus passing on his knowledge and skills to the next generation of artists.

With over 15 years-experience working across film and TV, music, gaming and digital content, Vanessa Pfeiffer is aware of the power that media and entertainment have in shaping our society. Hailing from the multi-cultural and multi-lingual metropolis of Montreal, and currently based in Los Angeles, she serves as Director on the Warner Bros. Discovery, Equity and Inclusion North America team. During her years working in independent film production in Montreal, Vanessa Pfeiffer contributed to the development and release of several films including “Turbo Kid”, “A Bottle in the Gaza Sea” and “Mars & Avril”. She also developed a feature documentary “Peddling Pictures”, unravelling the personal story of her grandfather; a Lebanese-Syrian immigrant. As one of the few women on the Gaming Talent Management team, she championed a more inclusive approach and worked to shine a light on creators from around the globe.

Dan Sarto is co-founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Animation World Network – AWN.com, which since launching in 1996, has become one of the largest, most comprehensive, and well-respected publishers of animation and visual effects news and information resources on the internet. Each month, AWN’s industry portal, which includes ANIMATIONWorld and VFXWorld Magazine sites, is visited by over 350,000 unique readers from more than 100 countries. He frequently speaks at industry events, has served on juries, delivered keynotes, or moderated panels at events.

In addition to his duties at AWN, Dan Sarto just finished a three-year stint as Chair of the Computer Animation Festival for SIGGRAPH Asia, most recently in Daegu, South Korea this past December. Dan Sarto also spent four years as a Master of Animation and New Media for the Beijing-based DeTao Group.

Katrin Rothe grew up in East Germany. She studied experimental media art in Berlin and London. In her films she combines animation with other genres. Her work has been awarded several prizes in Germany, including the Grimme Award. Her first feature-length film “1917 – The Real October” (2017), a historical documentary about artists during the Russian Revolution, was screened at several renowned film festivals worldwide. In two exhibitions, Katrin Rothe also explored her own work and the making-of process: one took place at the Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, the other at the Deutsches Institut für Animationsfilm in Dresden. In her new film she goes yet another step further: she blends her innovative, unique approach to animation with documentary and fictional elements.

Mike Buckland is the Director of Production at Triggerfish Animation Studios and has been a member of the Triggerfish leadership since 2006. He has over 20 years’ experience in CG animation, from commercials and short form entertainment, to TV series and full-length animated feature film productions, including “Adventures in Zambezia”, “Seal Team”, and the Academy Award-nominated two-part film “Revolting Rhymes”. Most recently he has been working on “Aau’s Song”, an original short film for Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: Visions Season 2”, the TV series “Mama K’s Team 4” for Netflix and “Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire”, an anthology of African sci-fi short films for Disney+, all due for release this year. As the Director of Production, his creative and technical leadership has been pivotal in the success of Triggerfish as it has become Africa’s first truly global studio, trusted by leading streamers and content distributors worldwide.