Jury

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION OF FEATURE FILMS

Milorad Krstić

Milorad Krstić was born in Slovenia. He took a degree in law at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Since 1989 he has been living and working in Budapest, Hungary as a painter and multimedia artist. He has immersed himself in different fields of visual art with painting, drawing, sculpting, documentary films, stage design, set design, photography, interactive CD-ROM, picture books for children and comics. For his first short animated film, My Baby Left Me (1995), he was awarded a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. His animated feature film Ruben Brandt, Collector (2018) premiered on the Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival and won many awards.

Hugh Welchman

Hugh Welchman is a graduate of Oxford University and the National Film and Television School. He is a co-founder of BreakThru Films. In 2008 Welchman was awarded the Oscar for BreakThru’s first major production, Peter and the Wolf, which premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in London accompanied by a live orchestra. His next film, The Magic Piano (2011), premiered in the Forbidden City in Beijing, accompanied by a live performance by Lang Lang. He was writer and director alongside Dorota Kobiela on Loving Vincent (2017), as well as The Peasants (2023).

Alena Vandasová

Before joining the production company MAUR Film in 2008, Alena Vandasová worked as the Director of the Prague House of Photography and in the marketing department of the National Gallery Modern Art Collection in the Trade Fair Palace. Her producer filmography includes the feature co-productions Fritzi: A Revolutionary Tale (2019), The Crossing (2021) and Of Unwanted Things and People (2024). She won the Czech Lion Award for Lucie Sunková’s animated film Suzie in the Garden (2022). 

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION OF SHORT FILMS AND STUDENT FILMS

Mariam Kandelaki

Mariam Kandelaki is a multifaceted professional in the world of animation, renowned for her expertise as both an animation director and producer. She is the organizer of the International Film Festival Nikozi, a leader of the project development workshop Annecy Georgia Animation and founder of the annual International animation conference Anima-Tbilisi and of the Georgian Animators Association, SAQANIMA. The films she has worked on have earned a total of 80 awards at festivals around the globe. Throughout her career journey, Kandelaki has continually demonstrated a deep commitment to advancing the art and industry of animation.

André Eckardt

André Eckardt worked as managing director of the German Institute for Animated Film from 2008 to 2015, where he curated international exhibitions on animation, expanded the collection and collaborated for the first time with Anifilm (and other festivals). He developed and coordinated a digitising programme for regional film heritage and has been head of the film department of the Saxon State Library since 2021, which has a growing collection of documentary and home movies and sounds, with the earliest dating from the 1920s. Eckardt has been animation curator at DOK Leipzig and a member of the festival’s selection committee since 2016.

Emma De Swaef

Emma De Swaef specialises in stop-motion and doll-making, her preferred working materials include wool, felt and textile. Together with Marc James Roels she made the short film Oh Willy… in 2012, a stop-motion short that won 80 international awards including the Cartoon d’Or and a Cézar nomination. They went on to make the mid-length film This Magnificent Cake! (2018), which premièred at the director’s Fortnight in Cannes and had a cinematic release in Belgium, the Netherlands and the USA. In 2022 they directed the first chapter of the critically acclaimed anthology film The House for Netflix. They are based in Antwerp, Belgium.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION OF ABSTRACT AND NON-NARRATIVE ANIMATION AND MUSIC VIDEOS, VR FILMS

Steven Woloshen

Steven Woloshen is a Canadian teacher, film conservationist, animator, craftsman and author. He has created over 50 award-winning abstract films and time-based installations for festivals, galleries and museums. He has been nominated twice for Canada’s Governor General’s award and has received numerous research and creation grants. He is the author of two books, Recipes for Reconstruction: The Cookbook for the Frugal Filmmaker (2010), a hands-on manual for decay, renewal and other handmade, analogue film techniques, and Scratch, Crackle & Pop! A Whole Grains Approach to Making Films without a Camera (2015).

Wiola Sowa

Wiola Sowa is an animated film director, an academic and a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Faculty of Graphic Arts and of the Film School in Łódź. From 2008–2012 she was chair of the Polish chapter of ASIFA. She was also a member of the Krakow chapter of the Association of Polish Filmmakers. Her films have been screened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Kosciuszko Foundation in New York City, Barbican Centre in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Annecy Animation Festival in France and many more. She is an assistant professor at the Institute of Art and Design at University KEN in Krakow.

Jan Brukner

Liberec native Jan Brukner is a creative artist, visual author and director. When still in school, he fell in love with creating 3D virtual worlds and animation. Since 2005, together with director P. Sadílek, Brukner has been making music videos for Czech artists, as well as television spots. He has also worked for various film studios as a VFX and 3D matte painting artist. As an artistic director and creative designer, he has worked on many diverse VR and AR projects for BrainZ Immersive. He taught 3D graphics at the Václav Hollar Art School. Currently a freelancer, Brukner is the founder of the creative production and idea-making studio IDEAVIZ.

International Competition of Independent Computer Games

Eva Marková

Eva Marková is an animator, illustrator and game developer. She studied at the Book Design Studio of the University of Ostrava and at the Animation Studio of the Faculty of Multimedia Communications of the Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín. She is the co-author and art director of Phonopolis. Since 2017, she’s been working on the game for Amanita Design and this year, the dystopian paper adventure earned her and her team a nomination for the Excellence in Visual Art Award at the Independent Games Festival.

Onat Hekimoğlu

Onat Hekimoğlu is a game maker and composer from Cologne, Germany. Driven by curiosity, he has been making various award winning interactive projects, ranging from installations to VR experiences to games. In 2015, he co-founded the games studio Slow Bros. He has been working as their director and composer on the studio’s debut feature title Harold Halibut.

Vojtěch Buchta

Vojtěch Buchta is a 3D graphic and motion designer and pedagogue. He graduated in Arts and Visual Arts for Education at Masaryk University and Graphic Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Brno University of Technology. He worked as an art director at Czech Television and subsequently became a freelance motion designer focusing on projects for the gaming industry and music videos. He’s worked for game developers SCS Software as Training Center Leader since 2022.