The festival is under three months away, and we're really excited to be able to present our fantastic guests speakers! We are looking forward to see what they have to share with us, and we hope you are too!
The guests range all the way from illustrators to directors, and here is a little presentation of what they are - and have been - working with!
TONY BANCROFT WILL BE JOINING US ONLINE
Tony is a renowned director, animator and podcaster. During his 12-year career with Disney Studios, Bancroft helped create and animate Pumbaa, the lovable warthog in The Lion King; Kronk, the dim-witted sidekick in The Emperor’s New Groove; Cogsworth the nervous clock from Beauty and the Beast; and Iago the pestering parrot in Aladdin.
Bancroft’s most notable accomplishments include being the co-director of Walt Disney’s animated film, Mulan, for which he received the Annie Award for Director of the Year from ASIFA-International; and animation supervisor of Sony’s Stuart Little 2, for which he received the Visual Effects Society’s top award for character animation.
Currently, outside of being the professor/ program director of APU’s Animation and Visual Effects Program, he is animating on the sequel to Enchanted for Disney Studios. And, in his spare time, Tony and his twin brother, Tom, produce a popular podcast called The Bancroft Brothers Animation Podcast, which is the #1 podcast for animation on iTunes.
MERLIN CROSSINGHAM WILL BE JOINING US LIVE
Creative Director of Wallace & Gromit at Aardman Animations.
Merlin joined Aardman as an animator in 1996 having completed a degree in Animation at Newport Film School. He initially worked on commercials then went into features as a lead animator on ‘Chicken Run’, then lead animator and second unit director on ‘Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of The Were Rabbit’. Merlin then co-directed Creature Comforts USA. Following this he supervised the animation of Wallace and Gromit A Matter of Loaf and Death and then directed commercials and short form with a focus on Wallace and Gromit.
In 2009 he took on the role of Creative Director for Wallace & Gromit to look after all their exploits and has created live shows, rollercoasters, exhibitions, stamps, coins, games and AR and VR as well as traditional stop motion animation. Merlin is also the current voice of Aardman’s longest running character Morph. At present Merlin is directing the next Wallace and Gromit film with Nick Park.
KATARINA LUNDQUIST WILL BE JOINING US LIVE
Katarina Lundquist is an award-winning director from Oslo, Norway, with a bachelor's degree from The Animation Workshop. Her debut short film Forglemmegei (Forget-Me-Not) attended film festivals all around the world, and was on the shortlist for the Student BAFTA’s.
Katarina has an enormous passion for everything animation, and loves to create stories with an emotional core. She was one of the chosen directors for the 2019 edition of Nordic Talents, where she pitched an original animated series about death, life and coming of age. In 2020 she directed the Christmas campaigns for Dogs Trust Ireland and Dogs Trust UK, and she is currently working as a director at Scandinavia's biggest animation studio, Qvisten Animation. She’s also developing an animated series which was selected for Cartoon Forum 2021, as well as writing an animated feature film which was selected for the Cinekid Script Lab 2021-2022 edition.
ANNA MANTZARIS WILL BE JOING US ONLINE
Anna is a Swedish animation director and filmmaker. Her films have won over 80 international awards, including European Animation Award, Vimeo Best of the Year, and Walt Disney Award and Audience Award at Ottawa International Animation Festival.
Anna has a BA in Animation from Volda University College, and a MA in Animation at the Royal College of Art in London. She mainly works as a filmmaker and director, but also recently worked on Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and is occasionally teaching as a guest lecturer, among others at Royal College of Art, Stockholm University of the Arts, and National Film & Television School.
PERNILLE ØRUM WILL BE JOINING US ONLINE
Pernille is a danish illustrator and character designer living as a freelancer in Nairobi, Kenya. She graduated The Animation Workshop in 2011 with a bachelor degree in Character Animation and went on to both Ireland and UK to work as an animator before deciding to move back to Denmark and focus on character design.
Pernille has worked with companies such as Hasbro, Nickledeon Jr, Mattel, Dreamworks, Netflix, Disney publishing and Penguin Goldenbooks and she was the lead character designer on Warner Brother’s ‘DC Superhero Girls’. In 2019 Pernille had her debut as a comic book artist with Mark Miller’s HitGirl written by the movie director Kevin Smith.