MALTE STEIN

Malte Stein is an independent Berlin-based animation film maker. He graduated from the University of Film and Television “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam Babelsberg with a diploma in animation. He had previously studied scriptwriting and drew a lot of comic stories since the 1990s. His films Blue Dream (2013), Flood (2018) and Thing (2021) were screened at many festivals and won several awards. In 2022 he took part in the TAIS Artist in Residence Program in Toronto, Canada. He’s been working on his new film project since 2022.

CHENG-HSU CHUNG

Cheng-Hsu Chung is a Taiwanese animation artist and director currently based in Berlin, Germany. Chungʼs artistic practice focuses on using surreal images and character performances in animation to articulate the changing nature of emotion, modern romantic relationships, and the experiences that queer bodies encounter in today’s queer culture. His work can be found at film festivals, on TV, and in exhibition venues.

JOANNA KOZUCH

Director, visual artist and animator. Joanna graduated from Academy of Fine Arts (University of Arts) in Poznan and the University of Silesia in Katowice. She is a teacher at the Animation department at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where she completed her Ph.D. studies. Her filmography includes Game (2004), Fongopolis (2014), 39 Weeks, 6 Days (2017), Music Box (part of the Happiness Machine project), and Once There Was a Sea… (2021). She’s currently working on her next short animated film and a new documentary.

DANIEL ŠULJIĆ

Daniel Šuljić is a Vienna-Zagreb based animation film director and musician. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He was also given the title of honorary professor at Jilin College of the Arts Animation School in Changchun, China. He was a lecturer of classical animation at the University of Art and Design in Linz. His films Evening Star (1993), Leckdonalds (1995), The Cake (1997), I Can Imagine It Very Well (2004), Transparency (2015), and From Under Which Rock Did They Crawl Out (2018) were shown at hundreds of international and national film festivals, TV channels across Europe, and won numerous international awards. He’s the member of many festival juries, an assistant professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb, the Croatian ambassador of the European Animation Awards, and the artistic director of the World Festival of Animated Film Animafest Zagreb.

DIANA CAM VAN NGUYEN

Diana Cam Van Nguyen is a Czech-Vietnamese director, artist, and FAMU graduate. She specializes in animated documentaries (The Little One; Apart; Love, Dad), and her films focus on personal themes. Her short films have competed at festivals in Locarno, Rotterdam, Toronto and the IDFA festival. Apart (2018) was awarded Best Czech Experimental Film at IDFF Jihlava 2018. and was among the finalists of the BAFTA Student Awards 2019. Her latest short film Love, Dad (2021) won the Czech Lion Award and the Czech Film Critics’ Award 2022 for Best Short Film and the Magnesia Award for the Best Student Film. The film has received international awards from the BFI London Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand, DOK Leipzig and Palm Springs. Diana is currently working on her feature film debut, combining live-action with animation.

OLGA BOBROWSKA

Olga Bobrowska is a doctor of Humanities in Arts Studies. She is a scholar active in animation studies, film studies and cultural theory, as well as a film culture activist and curator. She lectures at the Institute of Audiovisual Arts at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She is a festival director and co-founder of the StopTrik International Film Festival. She frequently serves as a juror at various festivals, and as a member of selection committees. Olga is also a permanent contributor to Zippy Frames, a magazine dedicated to animation. She is an author of Fighting Puppets (2023) and a co-editor of two collective monograph books, Obsession, Perversion, Rebellion: Twisted Dreams of Central European Animation (2016); and Propaganda, Ideology, Animation: Twisted Dreams of History (2019).

LUCE GROSJEAN

In 2014 Luce Grosjean founded Sève Films, a distribution company designed to promote young talented directors and student films at animation festivals. In 2017, she associated with Miyu Productions to create Miyu Distribution, specializing in distribution at festivals and international sales for animation.

Four of the films that she distributed have been nominated for Oscars, one for the César, and her own films are internationally successful. Her company received the award for the best short film distribution company in 2020 by UniFrance and La Fête du Court Métrage.

MAREK MENKE

Marek Menke is a graphic designer based in Bratislava, where he creates for various cultural institutions. While studying at the Academy of Performing Arts Bratislava, he was already inclined towards poster design, and as a DJ he actively utilized these skills in the club scene. He went from smoky clubs to projects for the Slovak National Theatre, the Slovak Design Centre, the Slovak Film Institute, and other cultural institutions. His visuals accompanied the start of the Tepláreň project, which has gradually become a platform that represents Slovakia’s queer community. Since 2020 he has led Fest Anča International Animation Festival’s visual identity, and is responsible for the Slovak Radio building graphic by Čierne diery.

MARTA PAJEK

Marta Pajek is a Polish animation filmmaker. She graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, where she specialized in animated film in the class of Jerzy Kucia. As part of an exchange programme, she studied at Turku Arts Academy in the class of Priit Pärn. She is the author of the animated short Sleepincord, and the recently completed, award-winning, animated film triptych Impossible Figures and other stories.