Áron Gauder is a Hungarian animator and film director. He studied animation at MOME in Budapest. He is a co-creator of the animated feature The District (2004) and the director of Four Souls of Coyote (2023). He also makes documentaries and animated shorts.

Jana Čížkovská graduated in Film Studies at Charles University. Since 2011 she has been cooperating with numerous film festivals as a curator, programme consultant and catalogue editor. She is a consultant for animated projects in development and the head of the programme of iShorts; in addition, she works for the Program department of Czech Television.

Steve Woods has worked in film since 1988. His award-winning work encompasses animation, documentaries, dance films and experimental films. As a founder member of the Galway Film Fleadh, Woods initiated the first animation competition in Ireland. He programmed the Irish animation showcase at the Annecy International Animation Festival in 2012. In 2023 he was awarded the Murakami Award at Dingle Animation for his contribution to Irish animation.

Izabela Plucińska is a Polish director of animated films. She is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź and the Łódź Film School, where she also completed her Ph.D. She specialises in animation in clay. She has made 18 films, including Jam Session (2005), winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin IFF. She is currently a lecturer at the Academy of Art in Szczecin.

Dillon Markey is an Emmy Award–winning stop-motion animator, director and innovation engineer. He was a key character animator on Robot Chicken. He was involved as a co-animator on PES's Oscar-nominated short film Fresh Guacamole, and he worked as a lead animator on several other PES projects.

Jana Rogoff is an animation historian and theorist. She lectures at the Department of Film Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. In her research, she develops ecocritical and ecomaterialist perspectives on animation and deals with sustainability in the anima tion industry. Between 2018 and 2024, she headed a research project at the Humboldt University in Berlin focusing on animation from the former Socialist Bloc with an emphasis on space and the environment.

Uri Kranot is an acclaimed danish filmmaker working as a duo with Michelle Kranot. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Académie des César. He received the Grand Jury Prize for Best Immersive Work at the 77th La Biennale di Venezia and Best Immersive XR at the 74th Festival de Cannes.

Vuk Jevremović is an animator and film director, born in Germany and living in Croatia. He studied architecture at the Technical University Belgrade and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. His first animation, The Wind Subsides, was based on a cheetah in motion. Panther, inspired by a poem by R. M. Rilke, won 15 international awards and was shortlisted for an Oscar. He also makes music videos for the Slovenian band Laibach.

Jan Šrámek is a visual artist, illustrator and educator. He’s a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Brno University of Technology, where he currently serves as the Director the Studio of Video together with Martin Mazanec. Šrámek forms a creative duo together with Veronika Vlková, and he frequently collaborates with animator and director Martin Búřil. In 2017 and 2020, he won the Czech Grand Design Award for Illustrator of the Year.

Veronika Zacharová is an illustrator and animator from the Czech Republic, working on award-winning films such as Hello Summer (2024) as well as on video games at Amanita Design. In addition to illustrating multiple books for children, she is also the author of the visual identity and jingle for Anifilm 2019.

Marc Lustigman is an accomplished game developer known for creating playful, beautifully detailed interactive worlds. He set up the Paris-based studio Darjeeling Prod. and together with his colleague Noam Roubah, he has produced multiple animated films, documentaries, series and award-winning games, including Homo Machina (2018), which received the Award for Best Visual Art at Anifilm 2018.

Josh Hollendonner is an Austrian independent creator of experimental video games such as qomp (2021), Mosa Lina (2024) and Fallstruktur (2025). His work is full of unexpected procedural moments that convey ideas through the gameplay itself.