2023 Juries

Biography

Mexican Creator and Executive Producer Sofía E. Alexander currently works in the animation industry in Los Angeles.

She created and produced Onyx Equinox, an original action-packed animation series inspired by Mesoamerican Mexico. Onyx Equinox earned numerous nominations and other accolades, in particular the New Voice of the Year Award at the World Animation Summit, which landed Sofía in the Animation Magazine’s 2020 Animation Hall of Fame.

Sofía has worked with Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney TV, AMC, and Marvel. The many strings to her bow include working as a storyboard artist, director, supervisor, showrunner, or producer.

What is her vision for the future? To help establish animation as an artistic medium, and to tell diverse, unprecedented stories that reflect the world we live in.

Biography

Eric San, aka Kid Koala, is a Montreal-based scratch DJ, film composer, theatre producer and director.

He has released 5 solo albums and contributed to several feature film soundtracks including The Great Gatsby, Looper, Baby Driver, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. He has toured with the likes of Radiohead, Deltron 3030, and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

He has composed music for Cartoon Network, Sesame Street and Adult Swim. He also wrote the score for a short film (Basin Street Blues) and a music video (Things Are Going to Change) in competition at Annecy in 2003 and 2022.

He created the musical score for the award-winning Nintendo Switch video game Floor Kids. He wrote and illustrated the award-winning graphic novels Nufonia Must Fall and Space Cadet.

Lastly, he is known for his imaginative live productions such as Vinyl Vaudeville, the Satellite Turntable Orchestra, and The Storyville Mosquito, each of which expresses his unique form of storytelling with music, animation, film, and interactive entertainment.

Biography

After studying at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Nice, Jan Kounen made his mark in 1989 with the short film Gisèle Kérozène, which won the Grand Prix at the Avoriaz International Fantastic Film Festival.

In the 90s, he worked in advertising and made two new shorts, Vibroboy and Le Dernier Chaperon rouge, before releasing his first feature film, the eccentric and violent Dobermann.

Jan then travelled to Mexico and Peru, immersed himself in Shaman culture and returned in 2004 with the western Blueberry, adapted from the famous comic book by Jean-Michel Charlier and Mœbius.

He made a series of films, notably 99 Francs and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which closed the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Jan made a mini-series Flight of the Storks for CANAL+, then the documentaries The Journey and Vape Wave.

In 2019, he directed three virtual reality experiences: 7 Lives, -22.7C and Ayahuasca – Kosmik Journey (in competition at Annecy), before returning to film fiction with My Cousin.

Jan is currently working on a feature film animation based on the graphic novel Epiphania by Ludovic Debeurme, produced by Naia Productions.

Biography

Jerry Beck is a noted animation historian and veteran animation producer/distributor.

His over 15 books on animation history include The Animated Movie Guide, Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide, and The 50 Greatest Cartoons.

He currently teaches animation history at CalArts, UCLA and Chapman University, curates a monthly Cartoon Club for Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood, and edits two blogs, Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research.

As a film distributor, his company Streamline Pictures initially brought Miyazaki’s Totoro and Otomo’s Akira – in competition at Annecy 1989 – to the USA in the 1990s. And each year he presents a humorous The Worst Cartoons Ever program at Comic-Con International.

He is also currently Vice-President of ASIFA-Hollywood.

Biography

Emma De Swaef specialises in stop-motion and puppet making, her preferred working materials include wool, felt and textiles.

Together with Marc James Roels, she made the stop-motion short film Oh Willy… in 2012, in particular in competition at Annecy, and it won 80 international awards including the Cartoon d’Or as well as a César nomination.

Marc & Emma went on to make mid-length film This Magnificent Cake! (2018), which premiered at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, the Toronto International Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, and was an award-winner at Annecy before its cinematic release in Belgium, the Netherlands and the USA.

In 2022, they directed the first chapter of the Emmy Award-winning anthology film The House for Netflix, which also won the Jury Award for a TV Special at the Annecy Festival.

Biography

Dan Levy is an award-winning French multi-instrumentalist, artist, and composer.

Originally a soundtrack composer, in 2008 he founded French indie band The Dø with Olivia Merilahti. Their first album, A Mouthful, was a big hit with European audiences, ascending to the top of the charts in France. Combining their various influences from Jimi Hendrix to Björk, the record is built around Dan and Olivia’s beautiful songs and Dan’s innovative arrangements and production.

Dan recently returned to film scoring with the Oscar-nominated and Annecy (Cristal for a Feature Film 2019) multi-award-winning animated feature I Lost My Body, for which he received both the Annie Award and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for best score.

Biography

Julie Ann Crommett has been a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practitioner for over fourteen years leading disruptive change across media and tech. As Founder and CEO of Collective Moxie, Julie Ann works with organizations across the media landscape on inclusive storytelling practices, accountability, and internal/external community partnership.

Previously, she was Vice President of Multicultural Audience Engagement at The Walt Disney Studios where her team contributed to projects including Encanto, Soul, Coco, and Raya and the Last Dragon as well as launching the Disney Launchpad: Shorts Incubator.

Before Disney she was Google’s Entertainment Industry Educator in Chief and started her DEI career at NBCUniversal.

A proud Puerto Rican and Cuban American, Julie Ann serves on the boards of Women in Animation (WIA), NALIP, Hispanic Federation, and the Woodruff Arts Center.

Biography

Patricia Hidalgo is Director of Children’s & Education at the BBC. She is responsible for developing and implementing creative and editorial strategies for BBC Children’s and BBC Education services across all platforms including BBC’s iPlayer, CBeebies, and CBBC, with a focus on the strategic future direction of media consumption and business models, overseeing all the division’s content output including in-house productions, co-productions, and acquisitions.

Patricia has a strong industry track record at Turner and Disney in Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom, and is behind some of the most successful shows in kids’ TV. In 2017 she was awarded World Screen’s Global Kids Trendsetter Award for her outstanding contribution to the kids' media industry.

Biography

Director Benjamin Massoubre became fascinated by animation film when he discovered its richness and diversity at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

He began his career as an editor and was fortunate to work on many different animation projects, which earned him membership to the American Cinema Editors and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Some notable collaborations include: Jérémy Clapin on I Lost My Body, with Rémi Chayé on Long Way North and Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary and with Patrick Imbert on The Summit of the Gods – all of which won awards at the Annecy Festival.

His first film as Director, Little Nicholas – Happy as Can Be, was selected at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Cristal for a Feature Film at Annecy 2022.

Currently, he is working on several projects in both live-action shots and animation.