Alexandre Athané is a self-taught filmmaker and illustrator based in Paris. He writes, directs, and illustrates his own animated films, while also creating title sequences for cinema through his studio, THE SINGING PLANT COMPANY. His animated short film JUS D'ORANGE (2024) has earned recognition at numerous international film festivals, including the Spirit Award at the 27th Brooklyn Film Festival, the Jury Prize at the 25th Beverly Hills Film Festival, and the Visionary Award at the 2025 Tampa Animation Festival. Following this recognition, he is delighted to return to the Tampa Animation Festival as a member of the jury for its 2026 edition.
Avery Eisenson is a Programmer for the Annapolis Film Festival and Director of Programming at the Washington West Film Festival in Reston, Virginia. She comes to programming with a strong foundation in film production: she co-produced the documentary ANOTHER BODY (SXSW Special Jury Award, Sundance Catalyst) and contributed to projects including THE CASE AGAINST ADNAN SYED (HBO), DOGS (Netflix) and EMPIRE OF EBONY. Avery holds a BA in Sociology from Dartmouth College.
Benoit Berthe Siward is a film strategist and founder of The Animation Showcase, a strategy and consulting boutique dedicated to awards season campaigns in the motion picture industry. Specializing in animated shorts and features, he has led campaigns that have generated more than 40 Academy Award® nominations, including the awards strategies behind the Oscar®-winning films The Windshield Wiper (2022), War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko (2024) and In the Shadow of the Cypress (2025), and the Oscar-nominated features Flee, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Memoir of a Snail, Arco and Little Amélie. Benoit also created the first free, industry-only streaming platform designed to give film professionals worldwide access to the most notable animated shorts and feature films of the season.
As someone who has always wanted to push the art of stop-motion forward, LAIKA's Head of Animation Brad Schiff has made a career of doing just that. Animation Supervisor for LAIKA's Wildwood as well as the Oscar®-nominated Missing Link, Kubo and the Two Strings, The Boxtrolls, and ParaNorman, Brad oversees LAIKA's world-class team of animators, who consistently push stop-motion performance beyond its perceived limits. In addition to all of LAIKA's films, Brad's feature credits include Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. He earned an Oscar® nomination for Visual Effects and won a Visual Effects Society award for his work on Kubo and the Two Strings.
Carlos Franklin is a Paris-based visual artist who focuses on documentary and archive-based forms. He combines new media, video, installation, and drawing, as well as engaging in protean performative projects. Franklin is interested in how artistic practice reveals historical and political discourses. He explores semiotics to study aesthetics and representation paradigms and their role in the construction of meaning and the restitution of testimony. His work has been exhibited at numerous festivals, museums, and art centres, including the Centre Georges Pompidou and Grand Palais in Paris, the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO) and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.
Carlos Smith is an audiovisual director and producer, founder of SMITH & SMITH and HIERRO ANIMACIÓN. He has been professionally dedicated to animation since 1993, alternating content for television, film and other platforms with short films and experimental pieces. He has extensive teaching experience: he has been a professor at the National University of Colombia, the Javeriana University and the University of the Andes, and for eight years was professor and academic coordinator of the Master in Animation at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He is now academic director of the Digital Animation School of Veritas University in Costa Rica.
Dominic Carola is an award-winning director, lead animator, entrepreneur, and independent studio founder with over 30 years of experience in animation and film. A CalArts alumnus and veteran of Walt Disney Feature Animation, he helped bring iconic films to life including The Lion King, Mulan, Brother Bear, and served as Lead Animator on Lilo & Stitch. Following his tenure at Disney, Dominic founded Premise Entertainment, an artist-driven independent studio dedicated to developing high-quality, character-focused stories with positive, uplifting themes. As a studio head and director, he has led creative teams across feature films, shorts, themed entertainment, and commercial projects. His recent work includes the award-winning series pilot My Neighbor, now streaming on Angel Studios. Dominic remains passionate about visual storytelling, mentorship, and creating meaningful content that resonates across generations.
Screenwriter Jeff Stockwell's credits include the Sundance film "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys," "Bridge to Terabithia" and "A Wrinkle in Time" for Disney, the Writers Guild Award-nominated "Wilder Days" for TNT, and "Ivy & Bean" for Netflix. Jeff has worked as a consulting writer at major animation companies, including Pixar, DreamWorks, Aardman and Blue Sky. He is a longtime mentor for programs sponsored by Film Independent, Global Media Makers, USC's American Film Showcase, and the Writers Guild of America.
Kristian Zahariev is an animation director and animator from Bulgaria, born in 1999. He holds a BA in Animation (2022) and an MA in Animation Directing (2024) from NATFA "Krastyo Sarafov." His graduation short GARLIC SOUP, which he wrote, directed and animated, has had more than 30 selections at international animation and film festivals and won 7 awards, including the Critics' Choice of the Union of Bulgarian Artists at WFAF Varna 2024, Best Comedy at the 2025 Tampa Animation Festival, a Special Diploma from the student jury at the 44th VGIK International Student Festival, a Special Mention for Best Student Film at Golden Kouker 2025, and a Special Mention for animation at the FilmEU film festival. His debut short NEPHILA has just started its festival journey and has already won Best Debut and Best Bulgarian Film at WFAF Varna 2026. He has animated on several short films, and is currently a PhD candidate in NATFA's cinema faculty and a teacher in animation workshops for kids.
Luis Grané is a Los Angeles-based visual artist, born in Argentina, known for his animation, storytelling, digital media and design work. He worked as Supervising Director for animated series at Netflix in both the Family/Preschool and Adult divisions, including the multi-awarded, critically acclaimed City of Ghosts and Carol and the End of the World. He is an Emmy Award winner for Best Directing in an Animated Series and an Emmy nominee for Best Writing. Grané has worked in the entertainment industry as an animator and designer for studios including Sony, DreamWorks, Warner Bros., Disney, Pixar, Aardman and LAIKA, on films such as Ratatouille, The Matrix, The Boxtrolls, Hotel Transylvania, Spirit and Spider-Man 2. He did the production design and projection mapping for Alice in Wonderland for the Grand Rapids Ballet in 2017, which toured with ballet companies across the U.S., including the San Antonio Ballet's 2023 performance at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. His art videos and installations have been shown in museums and festivals around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and the Queens Museum in New York. He was an artist in residence at Tokyo Arts and Space (TOKAS) in 2016, where he produced the art video Pachinko. He is a visiting professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts.
Marco Franzolim is an advertising professional, educator, and the founder, CEO, and Creative Director of MonkeyBusiness—one of Brazil's pioneering creative studios specializing in presentations, videos, and animations, with a track record spanning over 17 years. A recognized authority on corporate storytelling and visual communication, he has transformed how more than 2,000 companies present their ideas through creative, audiovisual means, delivering around 7,000 projects across more than 12 countries. Passionate about creativity, corporate communication, cinema, and marketing innovation, Marco developed a unique, groundbreaking method—integrating planning, argumentation, scriptwriting, and motion design—to turn corporate presentations into truly creative and effective communication pieces; this method became the foundation of MonkeyBusiness, a company that revolutionized the market. A dedicated researcher and scholar, Marco explores how creativity and strategy can work in tandem to drive real business impact. He is also a speaker and columnist with over 1,000 published articles covering creativity, communication, motion design, and audiovisual media.
Patti White is the Co-Founder and Festival Director of the Annapolis Film Festival and Co-Founder and Principal at FILMSTERS, a production and development company operating in Annapolis, Maryland, and Los Angeles. Her credits have appeared on CBS, ABC, Lifetime, Discovery, Turner and others. She is known for producing and directing feature-length documentaries, and for producing the docu-reality series ABC's Extreme Makeover as Producer and Senior Producer.
Suzy Fagan Parr is a stop motion Director and Animator based in Bristol. She has been a core member of the animation team at Aardman for many years having started as a student on their first Model Animation course designed to train up animators for Chicken Run. Since then she has worked on all but one of their features and was an Additional Director on Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget in 2023. She has been an Episode Director on two series of the hugely popular Shaun the Sheep series as well as Animation Directing on various series and short form. In 2025 she completed her first independent director project under her company name Tea and Cake Productions.
Tim Searfoss is an international award-winning director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and animator with over 20 years of experience in the film industry. His work spans feature films, documentaries, short films and animations. He is a board member of The Christine Ortoll Charity, a non-profit working to inspire hope about mental health and substance use disorders, and founder of Fire Pillar Entertainment which focuses on creating stories that inspire.
Vanessa Esteves is an accomplished writer, director, executive producer, and content creator who has creatively overseen a wide range of projects across all genres. Recently, she co-created and acted as showrunner for the animated series Super Wish and wrote and co-directed the short film Christopher & the Bug. Her leadership and creative vision have helped shape numerous successful children's programs in the world of animation and family entertainment.