Grand jury
Anča Award for Best Animated Short jury member
Osman Cerfon
French animation director born in 1981. Began studying graphic design at the École Supérieure d’Art de Lorraine in Épinal, before enrolling at the animation film school La Poudrière in Valence, France, where he directed his graduation film Tête-à-tête in 2007. Since then, he has worked on various projects as screenwriter or animation technician. He simultaneously developed Sticky Ends (2010, 2013), a collection of animated shorts in which bad luck follows everyone crossing its path. His most recent film I’m Going Out for Cigarettes (2018) won last year’s Fest Anča and received multiple other awards around the world. It was also nominated for the prestigious French Césars Awards and the Annie Award 2020.
Anča Award for Best Animated Short jury member
Mari Kivi
Mari Kivi first studied painting and then gravitated towards animation studies. She has been a freelance illustrator for music events, designing album covers, taking part in group exhibitions, and directing short animations. She divides her time between making art and coordinating art projects. Since 2017 she has been working at the Estonian Academy of Arts’ animation department. She oversees student film distribution, animation education projects, and public screenings. She has been an Estonian Animation Association board member since 2019, leading projects in animation heritage. She is one of the founders of Animist Tallinn International Animation Festival in Estonia.
Anča Award for Best Animated Short jury member
Joaquín Cociña
Joaquín from Santiago, Chile, studied Art at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago de Chile. In 2007, together with Cristóbal León and Niles Atallah, he co-founded the production company Diluvio. Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña have worked together since then both in films and other art projects such as installations, paintings and sculptures, among others. The creative duo’s films combine various techniques. Their work has been exhibited at several museums and biennials, including the Guggenheim New York, KW Berlin, and the Venice Biennale. In 2018 they premiered their first feature film The Wolf House at the Berlinale, where they received the Caligari Award.
Slovak jury
Anča Award for Best Slovak Animated Short jury member
Cristóbal León
Cristóbal León from Santiago, Chile, studied Design and Art at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago de Chile, and Art and Media at Berlin University of the Arts and at De Ateliers, Amsterdam. In 2007, together with Joaquín Cociña and Niles Atallah, he co-founded the production company Diluvio. Cristóbal and Joaquín have worked together since then. The creative duo’s films combine various techniques such as photography, drawing, sculpture, and performance. Their work has been exhibited at several museums and biennials, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, and the Venice Biennale. In 2018 they premiered their first feature film The Wolf House at the Berlinale, where they received the Caligari Award.
Anča Award for Best Slovak Animated Short jury member
Martin Smatana
Martin studied animation at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (VŠMU) and in Prague (FAMU). As a student, he worked at the Estonian studio Nukufilm and led animation workshops for a few years. His debut film, Rosso Papavero, has won 13 international awards. His graduation film The Kite premiered at Berlinale in 2019, got to the semi-final of the Student Academy Awards, won 63 international awards, and is the first Slovak film selected for the MoMA film library in New York. He is currently directing the puppet film Apple Cores which forms part of a co-production feature film Of Unwanted Things and People, developing his short authorial film Hello Summer, and working on an illustrated book about good deeds, Dobrosaurus (Good-o-saurus).
Anča Award for Best Slovak Animated Short and Best Animated Music Video jury member
Katarzyna Gromadzka
Katarzyna studied Film Culture and Audiovisual Arts at Lodz University and Organization of Film and TV Production at Łódź Film School. She started her career as a production and set manager for commercials and music videos, and worked for numerous film festivals such as the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage and the Se-Ma-For Film Festival. She also worked at the Se-ma-for studio as event coordinator, production manager, and line producer. Currently, Katarzyna is the executive producer at Momakin which she co-founded and co-owns, and where she produced A Blue Room (dir. Tomasz Siwiński, 2014), the mini-series Kids of Courage (dir. Matthias Zirzow, 2019) nominated for Emmy Kids Award, and many more. She is also an animation talents’ representative, Polish Quality project coordinator, and organises Animarkt Stop Motion Forum.
Videoclips
Anča Award for Best Animated Music Video jury member
Thịnh Nguyễn
Thịnh is a Vietnamese independent filmmaker currently based in Copenhagen. She graduated from The Animation Workshop in Denmark in 2019 with a BA in Character Animation, her graduation film Tom Has a Plant (2019) won the Student Award at Fest Anča in 2020. Thịnh’s films are a combination of limited animation style and simple character designs, yet sophisticated storytelling. She is currently working as Art Director for a children’s show in Denmark, while working on her third short film In His Closet (2022) which will be the last film in the trilogy about her existence as a human being. The trilogy’s second film Funeral (2020) will be screened at this year’s Fest Anča – in the World Panorama section.
Anča Award for Best Animated Music Video jury member
Kropka
Jair Salvador Flores Alvarez, alias Kropka, is a script writer that specializes in and writes about international animation. Kropka has organized and curated several animation events around the world, including festivals as diverse as Stoptrik, Animateka, Animasivo, and Zubroffka. He has also organized individual screenings at cultural centres, achieving collaborations between festivals by drawing on the passion that unites them – animation. It is perhaps this outside-the-rules spirit that made him seriously consider founding ReAnima in Bergen, Norway. This festival he sees as a cultural and artistic channel for bringing new perspectives, understanding, and maintaining a dialogue with the global environment.
