Speak­ers & Experts

Nuria Blan­co is a writer, direc­tor and an Acad­e­my Award 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 pre-school 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.

Span­ish film pro­duc­er, for­mer audio­vi­su­al con­sul­tant at the Madrid region­al gov­ern­ment, AMPAS and Span­ish Film Acad­e­my mem­ber, mem­ber of the board in CAR­TOON, PhD in Film Stud­ies at URJC, grad­u­at­ed in direct­ing at ARTSS Inter­na­tion­al UK and in the Enter­tain­ment Mas­ter Class at the Erich Pom­mer Insti­tute in Berlin. Since 2001, he has pro­duced eleven fea­ture films for the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket (eight of them in ani­ma­tion) and has won five Goya Awards & twice the Jury Award in Annecy.

PAN­EL • 10 years of Car­toon Spring­board: voic­es of the young generation

To cel­e­brate the 10th anniver­sary of Car­toon Spring­board, we invite sev­er­al young pro­fes­sion­als who took part in past edi­tions of the event to share their expe­ri­ences, what they have learned, and their future plans. Par­tic­i­pate in this clos­ing round­table to meet and engage with them.

Berlin-based direc­tor Jan Gader­mann stud­ied film and, more specif­i­cal­ly, ani­ma­tion. He has writ­ten and direct­ed three short films and is co-cre­ator of the book series ​“Mats & Fri­da”. With his lat­est short, ​“Lai­ka & Nemo”, he grad­u­at­ed from the Film Uni­ver­si­ty Babels­berg Kon­rad Wolf and won a stu­dent Oscar in 2022.

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

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 & Celes­tine” and ​“Idé­fix”. She has also co-writ­ten the movie ​“Sam­Sam” and worked as a writ­ing direc­tor on the series ​“Les Blagues de Toto”, ​“Zouk”, etc.

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.

Soci­ol­o­gist by train­ing and with pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence in stand-up com­e­dy and impro, Joaquin now com­bines his work as an ani­ma­tion scriptwriter and pro­duc­er (cre­at­ing con­tent with his cre­ative part­ner Diego Por­ral), and his role of Senior Strat­e­gy Man­ag­er for Prime Video, super­vis­ing the strat­e­gy of the orig­i­nal Span­ish con­tent in Ama­zon MGM Studios. 

Dig­i­tal com­mis­sion­ner at ARTE France for 9 years, Lama Ser­han is ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing cre­ators in both the devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of their projects. Fic­tion, doc­u­men­taries & video games, ARTE France is involved in all of them.

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.

Cur­rent­ly Senior Head of Com­mis­sion­ing 7+ at BBC Chil­dren’s and Edu­ca­tion, Sarah is respon­si­ble for con­tent deci­sions across mul­ti­ple gen­res for young audi­ences includ­ing dra­ma, ani­ma­tion, fac­tu­al and entertainment. 

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.

Hyeo Jin Moon is respon­si­ble for acqui­si­tions and all glob­al dis­tri­b­u­tion activ­i­ties for Latin Amer­i­ca, Asia and Spain in Dan­de­loooo. She for­mer­ly worked at French webtoon plat­form, Deli­toon, as mar­ket­ing and edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor and was respon­si­ble for part­ner­ship devel­op­ment and sales & rights man­age­ment. Pri­or to join­ing Deli­toon, she held the role of deputy direc­tor, Korea Cre­ative Con­tent Agency in Europe and mar­ket­ing man­ag­er, Kotra.

MAS­TER­CLASS • Back to the Garage Days

Rodri­go Blaas (Star Wars: Visions, 3Below: Tales of Arca­dia, Troll­hunters,…) will share insights on how embrac­ing the uncer­tain­ty of the blank can­vas can reignite the cre­ative spir­it. He will walk us through his search to find the pas­sion of the ear­ly garage days and being part of mean­ing­ful ani­mat­ed sto­ry­telling experiences.

Rodri­go Blaas is an Emmy-win­ning direc­tor, pro­duc­er and ani­ma­tor with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence. He worked on suc­cess­ful ani­mat­ed films such as Blue Sky Stu­dios ​“Ice Age”, Pixar’s ​“Find­ing Nemo”, ​“Rata­touille” and ​“The Incred­i­bles” or the acclaimed series ​“Troll­hunters”, which won six Emmy awards. He recent­ly wrote and direct­ed an orig­i­nal ​“Star Wars” short film for the series ​“Visions”. He found­ed El Guiri Stu­dios in Madrid that focus on direct­ing, devel­op­ment and front-end production.

Nalé­ka N’Gues­san selects chil­dren’s & YA con­tent for Okoo & Slash, France Télévi­sions’ lin­ear and non-lin­ear brands. She start­ed her career man­ag­ing the con­tent local­i­sa­tion part of the acqui­si­tions depart­ment of Lagardères YA and kids chan­nels, before being in charge of kids con­tent acqui­si­tions for Gul­li Africa. After that, she par­tic­i­pat­ed launch­ing the French Dis­cov­ery Fam­i­ly chan­nel at Dis­cov­ery, Inc. in 2017, pri­or join­ing France Télévisions.

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, a 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 can’t draw to save his life, but new tech­nolo­gies are chang­ing all that. Cur­rent­ly, he’s 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 - & ​“Isado­ra Moon” (52x11’) - SKY Kids - and 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”.

Light­box is an ani­ma­tion stu­dio and a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny estab­lished in Madrid in 2008 spe­cialised in high-qual­i­ty ani­ma­tion projects and respon­si­ble of the ​“Tadeo Jones” saga, the biggest Span­ish ani­ma­tion fran­chise in history.

PAN­EL • 10 years of Car­toon Spring­board: voic­es of the young generation

To cel­e­brate the 10th anniver­sary of Car­toon Spring­board, we invite sev­er­al young pro­fes­sion­als who took part in past edi­tions of the event to share their expe­ri­ences, what they have learned, and their future plans. Par­tic­i­pate in this clos­ing round­table to meet and engage with them.

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 the 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’ at 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. She 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 chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment. Trained in jour­nal­ism, he has been Deputy Direc­tor of Chil­dren’s 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 for RAI. She has been exec­u­tive pro­duc­er for many chil­dren’s pro­grams of RAI. She has worked as pro­duc­er and edi­to­r­i­al super­vi­sor for dif­fer­ent tar­get age groups: pre-school, pre-teens and teenagers. She has been work­ing for acqui­si­tions, sched­ule pro­gram­ming for pre-school, kids and teen’s tar­get. She is cur­rent­ly in pre-acqui­si­tions and co-pro­duc­tions 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, Cesar…). He also direct­ed 5 short films select­ed in Cannes, Cler­mont-Fer­rand… He’s a mem­ber of the Oscars Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­tures, the Cesar Acad­e­my, Unifrance and the Union of Inde­pe­dent Pro­duc­ers (SPI).

Pro­duc­er and screen­writer, Mar­ta began her audio­vi­su­al career back in the 1990s. She has been involved in radio, tele­vi­sion and cin­e­ma. She now puts all this expe­ri­ence at the ser­vice of Tei­dees Audio­vi­su­als, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny she co-found­ed with Sílvia Cortés. They have been nom­i­nat­ed twice for the Emmy Kids Awards and once for the Prix Jeunesse for their ani­ma­tion projects. They have also won awards at the pres­ti­gious Écran Jeunesse and the Quiri­no Awards Festivals.

PAN­EL • 10 years of Car­toon Spring­board: voic­es of the young generation

To cel­e­brate the 10th anniver­sary of Car­toon Spring­board, we invite sev­er­al young pro­fes­sion­als who took part in past edi­tions of the event to share their expe­ri­ences, what they have learned, and their future plans. Par­tic­i­pate in this clos­ing round­table to meet and engage with them.

Irene Chi­ca is a devel­op­ment exec­u­tive and screen­writer. Cur­rent­ly, she coor­di­nates the Devel­op­ment Depart­ment of Films at Áni­ma (“Bat­man Azteca” for Max and oth­er titles for ViX) and devel­ops com­e­dy series and shorts under her brand Wack­amo­la (“WAW Resort”, ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the MEDIA grant; ​“The Wind-Ups: Plas­tic Instinct”, pro­grammed at the WTF of Annecy; ​“Doble Curiosi­dad” after receiv­ing the CLAN Quiri­no Award ; the pilot of ​“Pink Noise”, ben­e­fi­cia­ry of Iber­me­dia Next).

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Mark Tayn­ton is Head of Adult Swim for EMEA, Adult Ani­ma­tion Con­tent Man­age­ment Inter­na­tion­al at Warn­er Bros. Dis­cov­ery, a lead­ing glob­al media and enter­tain­ment com­pa­ny. Work­ing across con­tent, brand and dig­i­tal with a spe­cial focus on grow­ing rela­tion­ships and col­lab­o­ra­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties with local ani­ma­tion tal­ent. Adult Swim is a leader in adult ani­ma­tion, home of glob­al smash hit ​“Rick and Morty”, the Emmy-Award win­ning ​“Gen­ndy Tar­takovsky’s Pri­mal”, ​“Smil­ing Friends” and more.