COMPETITION

Joaquín Cociña (Chile)

Artist and filmmaker, lives and works in Santiago, Chile. Born in 1980 in Concepción, Chile. He has a BA in Visual Arts from UC Chile. His work, both in the visual arts and cinematographic fields, has been shown and awarded internationally. His visual art and film work is done mainly as part of the duo “León & Cociña”. He is co-founder, producer and film director of the production company Diluvio.

Waltraud Grausgruber(Austria)

Waltraud Grausgruber is festival directress and co-founder of the “Tricky Women/Tricky Realities Festival” in Vienna, Austria, which takes place since 2001.
The festival focuses on animated films made by women and/or genderqueer artists and therefore fills a unique position within the international festival landscape.
From gender equality to digitalization, from human rights to the working world to social, economic and ecological questions – for twentyfour years, Tricky Women/Tricky Realities has been exploring social and political issues from a feminist and artistic perspective and offering new ways of highlighting social inequalities.
Waltraud Grausgruber studied theatre, film and media studies and tourism and wrote her Master‘s Thesis about African Cinema, was visiting researcher in France, Senegal and Burkina Faso, conceptualized several film festivals and curates international film programs. She got the Outstanding Artists Award of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture and published books like “Tricky Women Animations Film Kunst von Frauen / Women in Animation”.

Liu Jian (China)

Director.
Professor at the China Academy of Art. His animated films " Piercing I", " Have a Nice Day " and "Art Academy 1994" have won a number of international and domestic awards, including nominations for the Golden Bear Award in the Main Competition of the 67th and 73rd Berlin International Film Festivals, and the Best Animated Feature Award at the 54th Golden Horse Awards.

Wang Chi-Sui (Taiwan)

With a Ph.D degree in Fine Art, Dr. WANG Chi-Sui 王綺穗 highlights questions of the temporality and the materiality of identities in her creative art practices. Her works and curation have been widely exhibited, screened and published internationally, and received great reviews and awards. Since 2004 she began her academic career in Ireland ( 2008~13, Dublin City University) and in Taiwan (2013~ now, Taipei National University of the Arts). She is the Program Director currently for Taichung International Animation Festival (TIAF) and Executive Curator for KuanDu International Animation Festival (KDIAF). Meanwhile, she have been invited to curate programs and exhibitions for festival and event as well as being a producer for animated films.

Atsushi Wada (Japan)

Born in 1980. Graduated from Osaka kyoiku University, Image Forum Institute of Moving image and Tokyo University of the Arts. Began to create the short animation works from 2002. Like to make comfortable movements and is always thinking about the Japanese traditional concept called "Ma", the tension produced between movements.

Stéphane Aubier (Belgium)

Stéphane Aubier was born in 1964 in Verviers (Belgium). Passionate about comics, he enters a graphic arts school in Liège. There, he meets Vincent Patar, another comics enthusiast. Together they embark on studies in animated cinema in Brussels at La Cambre. This is where they create the 2D cartoon-style characters : Pic Pic, the magik pig and André, the bad horse, under the title « Pic Pic André shoow » in 1990. This first short film is noticed and rewarded in short film festivals. Subsequently, they produce more professional episodes of the adventures of « Pic Pic André shoow ».

After that, the duo of directors takes up the idea of Stephane's student short film called « A town called Panic ». In a cardboard decor, small figurines that look like toys are the heroes of an absurd village saga. They film a pilot episode called « The cake ». This episode is well received and wins the Grand Prix at the Anima Festival in Brussels and the Grand Prix in the TV Section at the Annecy Festival in 2001. Boosted by these different awards, the series (20X5min) starts in 2005 and is followed by a feature film in 2009 and from 2012 by 26-minutes episodes. In the meantime, Stephane participates to the production of the feature film called « Ernest and Celestine » adapted from the books by Gabrielle Vincent but also the series « Stinky Dog ». Currently he prepares the fifth episode of « A town Called Panique » which will be called « The treasure ».

Moon Sujin(Korea)

Moon Sujin is a South Korean director born in 1996.
She graduated from Korea National University of Art with a BA in Animation in 2022. Her first official film, and university graduation film, GAKJIL_Persona, was widely recognized in festivals like Annecy, Cannes and other various international film festivals.
After releasing GAKJIL, she focused on illustration. With her activities expanding to participating illustration markets, she is considering highlighting the strengths in her artwork by creating consumer-friendly merchandise.
She is active in connecting with other artists and people who are interested in art, which helps her develop her creativity in depth and further broaden her audience.
She includes this idea in her upcoming film, as she always expresses her emotions honestly when she makes films.
Her greatest goal is to connect with her audience and hopes that her next film will be able to achieve a special bond with her viewers.

Koyo Yamashita（Japan）

Since 1996, he has worked for Image Forum, a non-profit organization for experimental and independent films, and from 2001 to the present, he has been the director of Image Forum Festival, a film festival run by Image Forum, From 2005 to the present, he has been in charge of programming at Theater Image Forum, an art cinema in Shibuya, Tokyo. He has been a guest programmer, curator, and jury member for film festivals, media art festivals, and screening events around the world.

Masashi Kawamura（Japan）

Chief Creative Officer of Whatever. Before co-founding the creative studio Whatever Co. in 2018, he was working as a Creative Director in various global creative agencies. His work spans across a wide range of mediums, including brand campaigns, TV programs, and music videos. Currently, he is developing his first feature length stop-motion animation film "HIDARI".

Kotomi Deai（Japan）

Animation supervisor/director, joined manglobe INC. in 2004 as a production assistant, and was in charge of storyboarding and directing for the first time in 2007 with “BLUE DROP”. After working on “Michiko & Hatchin” and “House of Five Leaves”, he became a freelance director.
Her major directing credits include “Skip and Loafer,” “Natsume's Book of Friends” (5th and 6th seasons), “Rolling Girls,” and “Silver Spoon” (2nd season). She has also directed many OP/EDs.

ShiShi Yamazaki（Japan）

She has established her own unique method of expression with hand-drawn rotoscoped animation in the style of watercolor paintings, using herself as a motif. Her representative works are “YA-NE-SEN a Go Go” (2011), “Yamasuki, Yamazaki” (2013), “Let's Just Get It Started ” (2020) .In 2018, she was selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia - Selected as Class of 2018. From 2019 onwards, she will hold solo exhibitions of her ceramic works in various locations. Based in Mashiko Town, Tochigi Prefecture, her work will be selected as a hometown tax return gift in 2022. His latest projects include Yuzuru Hanyu's Tokyo Dome performance “GIFT” (2023) and the title back for the NHK TV series “The Tiger and Her Wings” (2024).