Speak­ers & Experts

Agnès Biz­zaro is a con­sul­tant for devel­op­ing series and films, both in ani­ma­tion and live action. She worked a.o. in Cinétévé, France Télévi­sions (France 2) and M6’s team, before begin­ning a fruit­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion with Car­toon. Since 2015 as Con­tent Coor­di­na­tor, and now as Head of Con­tent Car­toon Spring­board. She is a jury mem­ber in ani­ma­tion film fes­ti­vals, a men­tor in ​“Les Femmes s’Ani­ment”, and a Qi Gong and Tai Chi teacher.

Nuria is a writer, direc­tor and an Acad­e­my Awards nom­i­nee pro­duc­er with over thir­teen years of expe­ri­ence in the ani­ma­tion indus­try. She stud­ied Ani­ma­tion at Edin­burgh Col­lege of Art in Scot­land and has worked across a vari­ety of projects, includ­ing the preschool TV series ​“Puf­fin Rock”; the fea­ture film ​“The Bread­win­ner”; the short films ​“Vio­let” and ​“Late After­noon”; and the Roy­al Tele­vi­sion Soci­ety Awards nom­i­nee TV series ​“Sil­ly Sun­days”, a project she cre­at­ed and directed.

Christophe worked for CANAL+, Super RTL, Nick­elodeon and what became Sky and Dis­ney XD. He’s co-founder/cre­ative pro­duc­er at Godo (“Team Nuggets”, ​“Fleak” and ​“Alpha Two’s Dreamed Jour­ney”). He writes books, films and series and worked on brands like Maya The Bee, Cal­imero and Peanuts. With Oscar-win­ner Michael Dudok de Wit, he wrote two pic­ture books adapt­ed into ​“Ella Oscar & Hoo” (65x11’) and its pre­quel movie now in devel­op­ment. He hosts, men­tors and curates a.o. at APD, Annecy, Ven­tana­Sur and… CAR­TOON in 3 languages.

Anas­ta­sia Hein­zl is a French screen­writer and script con­sul­tant. She has lived in Fin­land and in the US. She works on inter­na­tion­al copro­duc­tions (Warn­er EMEA, Dis­ney+, ZDF…). She stud­ied at Gob­elins, Ani­ma­tion Sans Fron­tières and UCLA.

Work­ing as an inde­pen­dent cre­ative devel­op­ment pro­duc­er, con­sul­tant, recruiter, men­tor, ​“match­mak­er”, Réka is orig­i­nal­ly Hun­gar­i­an, liv­ing in Ger­many. She has 30+ years inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence in 2D-3D Ani­ma­tion, start­ed on the cre­ative side (ink& paint, colour­ing super­vi­sor, com­pos­i­tor, tech­ni­cal direc­tor, flash ani­ma­tor), short­ly switched to dif­fer­ent producer/​man­age­ment roles, also in VFX and game indus­try. She is an Eval­u­a­tion Expert for EACEA Video Games. 

KEYNOTE • The Writ­ing Odyssey: from a bril­liant idea to distribution!

What do you want to expe­ri­ence, and bring to life? Are you on the right track: are you cer­tain about the form, for­mat, des­ti­na­tion, and audi­ence you wish to engage with? Between doc­u­men­tary research and bursts of cre­ativ­i­ty: how do you stay on course, man­age your sched­ule, chan­nel your ener­gy, and keep faith in your project despite the bumps along the way? How to find and choose the right trav­el com­pan­ions with whom to dream, build, and strug­gle (a lot): co-author, script doc­tor, and producer.

By start­ing her career at CAR­TOON, she was able to observe the inner work­ings of chil­dren’s pro­duc­tion and devel­op her inter­na­tion­al net­work. She then became Pro­duc­tion Direc­tor for the series ​“Nouky & friends” (sold in 160 coun­tries), a series on which she began to forge her pen. Since then, she has writ­ten over 120 episodes for series such as ​“T’choupi”, ​“Ernest & Céles­tine” and ​“Idé­fix”. She has also co-writ­ten ​“Sam­Sam’s LM”, and worked as a writ­ing direc­tor on the series ​“Les Blagues de Toto”, ​“Zouk”, etc…

Pro­duc­er of the ani­ma­tion films ​“Han­na and the Mon­sters”, ​“Dalia and the Red Book” and ​“Han­na and the lost Xmas”, he’s also co-pro­duc­ing ​“Juul” and the shorts ​“Princess and Frog” and ​“Lit­tle Bird”. He’s been pro­duc­ing fea­ture films for over 20 years and TV series.

Valentin Greulich grad­u­at­ed from the Ger­man Film and Tele­vi­sion Acad­e­my in Berlin where he pro­duced his own award-win­ning short films. He then worked for Berlin based Essen­tial Film, where he gained expe­ri­ence in all aspects of inter­na­tion­al co-pro­duc­tions before join­ing Akko­rd Film in 2012. Since then, he has shaped the com­pa­ny’s con­tent and strat­e­gy and has helped to build it into a renowned ani­ma­tion com­pa­ny. Togeth­er with own­er Dirk Bein­hold, he has been man­ag­ing the com­pa­ny since 2021.

Dun­ja Bernatzky is CEO and co-founder of arx ani­ma, arx ani­MAD in Madrid and co-own­er of Span­ish Arx­Light, a joint ven­ture with Light­box. arx ani­ma is known for the pop­u­lar inter­na­tion­al series ​“Talk­ing Tom & Friends”, ​“Rab­bit Acad­e­my” and ​“The Elfkins”. Her addi­tion­al promi­nent role as Head of IP under­lines her com­mit­ment to inno­v­a­tive projects. She believes in effec­tive and opti­mised pan-euro­pean co-pro­duc­tions and is a dri­ving force behind the cre­ative and busi­ness devel­op­ment of arx anima.

Mem­ber of Czech Film and Tele­vi­sion Acad­e­my, the Euro­pean Film Acad­e­my, the Inter­na­tion­al Emmy Award 2020 win­ner for series ​“Mar­ty is dead” and EAVE grad­u­ate 2023. He start­ed his career in Czech Tele­vi­sion. His love for cin­e­ma took him first to FAMU, where he stud­ied pro­duc­tion, and then to Bio­naut, where he works as a pro­duc­er. He has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the MID­POINT Script Devel­op­ment Pro­gram twice and attend­ed ACE Train­ing Days 2019. He is cur­rent­ly work­ing on sev­er­al projects at Bionaut.

Maud Chougui is an artis­tic pro­duc­er for Cyber Group stu­dios. She works on orig­i­nal cre­ations like ​“50/50 heroes” (a crazy com­e­dy), ​“The Tern” (a post apoc­a­lyp­tic series with the incred­i­ble Tony Valente), ​“Eri­ca & Trevor VS spooky mon­sters” (a spooky com­e­dy) or ​“Tomette” (a new cre­ation with Anouk Ricard).

Com­bin­ing exten­sive expe­ri­ence in cre­at­ing, with a flex­i­ble approach to cre­ativ­i­ty and zeit­geist.
In 35 years, Stef has gained a sol­id expe­ri­ence by telling hun­dreds of sto­ries, cre­at­ing dozens of projects and con­sol­i­dat­ing a clear vision. He was and is a direc­tor, pro­duc­er, writer, com­mis­sion­er for the Flem­ish pub­lic broad­cast­er, man­ag­er,… but above all: cre­ator of new sto­ries and inno­v­a­tive pro­duc­tions while sup­port­ing new talent.

KEYNOTE • The A.I. tsuna­mi is com­ing: can we surf it or will we get crushed?

Part gen­tle nudge, part vuvuzela con­cert, Nick­’s pre­sen­ta­tion starts with defin­ing the let­ters ​“A.I.” in our indus­try con­text. Next we look at approach­es to inte­grat­ing this new tech­nol­o­gy in your stu­dio or per­son­al work­flows, and end with some hazy pre­dic­tions and a call for exper­i­men­ta­tion and collaboration.

Nick has worked in var­i­ous pro­duc­tion roles in ani­ma­tion for over 20 years. He used to joke that he cant draw to save his life, but new tech­nolo­gies are chang­ing all that. Cur­rent­ly hes focused on help­ing ani­ma­tion com­pa­nies fig­ure out what to do about the com­ing A.I. tsuna­mi - includ­ing both the threats but also the oppor­tu­ni­ties. He’s just start­ed a newslet­ter focus­ing on this stuff, which you can sign up for at www​.nick​dor​ra​.com.

Cur­rent­ly Pro­duc­er for ​“A Grey­hound of a Girl” - 2D ani­mat­ed movie and ​“Isado­ra Moon” (52X11’) - SKY Kids + Series Pro­duc­er ​“Nova Jones” - (30X24’) for CBBC. Oth­er Pro­duc­er cred­its include ​“Jessy and Nessy” - Ama­zon Stu­dios, ​“Becca’s Bunch” - Nick­elodeon US & UK, ​“Lit­tle Roy” - CBeebies/​CBBC and ​“Zig & Zag”, ​“Zog­casts”, ​“Roy” 01-04 series among oth­ers. JAM’s TV series have won numer­ous inter­na­tion­al awards includ­ing BAF­TA, RTS and Kid­screen awards.

KEYNOTE • Devel­op­ing orig­i­nal IPs in the fran­chise era.

At a time when fran­chis­es and adap­ta­tions dom­i­nate a big part of the ani­ma­tion mar­ket, how much room is there left for orig­i­nal IPs? Perrine’s pre­sen­ta­tion delves into the ways authors and pro­duc­ers col­lab­o­rate to bring new char­ac­ters and worlds to life, and to turn them into inter­na­tion­al suc­cess­es. Is cre­ative free­dom com­pat­i­ble with com­mer­cial suc­cess? Spoil­er alert, the answer is YES.

Per­rine Gau­thi­er is an Inter­na­tion­al Emmy-nom­i­nat­ed pro­duc­er with 15 years of expe­ri­ence devel­op­ing and pro­duc­ing ani­mat­ed con­tent. Her recent cred­its include ​“Mus-mush and the Mus­cles”, cur­rent­ly air­ing world­wide and in pro­duc­tion for a sec­ond sea­son; and the short film ​“Luce and the Rock”, which pre­miered at the Berli­nale and has been select­ed to 150 fes­ti­vals, aside from its TV and the­atri­cal release. Per­rine is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing two new series projects as well as a fam­i­ly special.

Com­put­er Engi­neer, in 2012 she decid­ed to ded­i­cate her­self to her real pas­sion: telling sto­ries through ani­ma­tion. She has writ­ten, direct­ed and pro­duced the ani­mat­ed short films ​“Rober­to” (2020) and ​“Roped” (2022), both long-list­ed for the Acad­e­my Awards. Car­men is cur­rent­ly work­ing as a direc­tor in the ani­mat­ed fea­ture film ​“A World of Their Own”, in devel­op­ment, pre­sent­ed in Car­toon Movie 2022. Also she is writ­ing her first script for an ani­mat­ed fea­ture film ​“The Sinnerman”.

Sif Sav­ery is a Dan­ish Direc­tor who grad­u­at­ed from The Ani­ma­tion Work­shop (Den­mark) in 2019; with addi­tion­al stud­ies at La Poudrière’s Euro­pean Pro­gram (France) and Chungkang Col­lege of Cul­tur­al Indus­tries (South Korea). She has since been work­ing as an Ani­ma­tion Super­vi­sor and Direc­tor for com­pa­nies such as Nør­lum and Team­TO - and is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing her indie series ​‘Tales of Zale’ into a TV-series togeth­er with the for­mer. She’s par­tic­u­lar­ly drawn towards heart­felt sto­ry­telling in a seri­al­ized format.

With +15 years expe­ri­ence in audio­vi­su­al pro­duc­tion and sales, Iván co-found­ed his bou­tique stu­dio Peek­a­boo Ani­ma­tion in Barcelona in 2015. He’s pro­duc­er of TV series such as ​“I, Elvis Ribol­di”, ​“Rocky Kwa­ter­n­er”, ​“Mironins” or ​“Audrey’s Shel­ter”. He is also Chair­man at Proan­i­mats, VP of Diboos/​PROA and VP at Ani­ma­tion in Europe, as well as lec­tur­er at LaSalle uni­ver­si­ty. Goya nom­i­nee and Gaudí win­ner for ​“Mironins: the movie”. He was also award­ed ​“Pro­duc­er of the Year” in Car­toon Forum 2022.

In the busi­ness since 1997 work­ing for pres­ti­gious com­pa­nies such as Pathé Inter­na­tion­al, Han­way Films and Lola Films as Direc­tor of Sales and Acqui­si­tions. Tania fell deeply in love with the world of ani­ma­tion while work­ing for Dygra Films in 2005 as MD and Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er. Until 2017 she was the Sales Asso­ciate at Sola Media, well known for its exper­tise in the inter­na­tion­al fam­i­ly enter­tain­ment busi­ness. At present she runs Pink Par­rot Media with her part­ner since 2018.

With over 20 years expe­ri­ence in inte­grat­ed Interactive/​TV projects, Yago has linked his life and career to new com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies and chil­drens enter­tain­ment. Trained in jour­nal­ism, he has been Deputy Direc­tor of Chil­drens Inter­ac­tive Con­tent at RTVE, and Online Edi­tor for the Fox Kids and Jetix web­sites in Spain. He is cur­rent­ly the Direc­tor of Clan TV and Head of Chil­dren Con­tent at TVE, respon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion of chil­dren’s TV programmes.

Sara works in the chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment depart­ment of RAI, the Ital­ian nation­al pub­lic ser­vice broad­cast­er and media.
She has been exec­u­tive pro­duc­er for many chil­dren’s pro­grams of RAI and has worked as pro­duc­er and edi­to­r­i­al super­vi­sor for dif­fer­ent tar­get age groups: preschool, pre-teens and teenagers.
Hav­ing also worked for acqui­si­tions, sched­ule pro­gram­ming for preschool, kids, and teen’s tar­get, she is cur­rent­ly in the pre-acqui­si­tion and co-pro­duc­tion depart­ment as pro­duc­er of live action series and cartoons.

Ron Dyens cre­at­ed Sacre­bleu in 1999. Since then, he pro­duced more than 90 films (shorts, fea­tures and series) which received more than 2 000 selec­tions over the world (Cannes, Sun­dance, Berli­nale, Oscars, TIFF, Venice…) and pres­ti­gious awards (Palme d’Or, Sil­ver Bear, César…). He also direct­ed 5 short films select­ed in Cannes, Cler­mont-Fer­rand… He’s a mem­ber of the Oscars Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­tures, the César Acad­e­my, Unifrance and the Union of Inde­pe­dent Pro­duc­ers (SPI).

Dio­go joined Lam­padace­sa for the short film ​“Can­di­do” in 2006. From 2007 to 2010 tran­si­tioned to Sardinha em Lata where he worked on shorts like ​“Mi Vida En Tus Manos”, ​“Desas­sossego”, ​“Olhos do Farol”, ​“Viagem a Cabo Verde” and in the TV series ​“Ema e Gui”. Then, he joined the adver­tis­ing indus­try as animator/​director. In 2015 he returned to Sardinha em Lata. He works in pro­duc­tion for titles like the Span­ish Acad­e­my award win­ner ​“The Mon­key” to the stop­mo­tion ani­ma­tion fea­ture film ​“My Grand­fa­thers Demons”.

Span­ish reporter and con­sul­tant work­ing for promi­nent indus­try media such as Screen Inter­na­tion­al, Latam­cin­e­ma or, pre­vi­ous­ly, Vari­ety. At CAR­TOON events, he has also act­ed as expert and chair­per­son. For the last few years he has served as mem­ber of diverse insti­tu­tion­al boards for pub­lic cin­e­ma aids – Iber­me­dia, Spain’s ICAA, Valencia’s IVC and Catalonia’s ICEC.

Lau­rent Witz has always been pas­sion­ate about artis­tic cre­ation. Pro­duc­er and direc­tor of ani­mat­ed films, he won the Oscar for best ani­mat­ed short for ​“Mr Hublot”. He has set up two pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies, Wat­tframe and Zeilt Pro­duc­tions, with nation­al and inter­na­tion­al projects. He devel­ops and pro­duces ani­mat­ed series and fea­tures such as ​“Ben­jamin Bat” and ​“Into the Won­der­woods”. This lat­est project has been select­ed for the upcom­ing Cannes and Annecy Film Festivals.