The Festival
Panel of Judges
John Musker
EUA
John Musker is a veteran of the Walt Disney Animation Studio where he was an animator, writer, director, and producer. John grew up in Chicago, Illinois as part of a large Irish Catholic family. He followed up his English Literature studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, with two years at CalArts as part of the new Character Animation Program in the mid-Seventies, where he learned not only from Disney and Chouinard veterans like Elmer Plummer, Bill Moore, and Ken O’Connor, but also his fellow classmates there, many who have gone on to direct distinguished films: folks like Brad Bird, Henry Selick, John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Chris Buck. At Disney he was mentored by Eric Larson, the veteran animator and one of Disney’s fabled “Nine Old Men,” who brought Figaro the cat to life in Pinocchio, among many other characters in his distinguished career. John became an animator on The Fox and the Hound (1981), and later joined Ron Clements to direct The Great Mouse Detective (1986) alongside Disney veterans Burny Mattinson and Dave Michener. Ron and John paired up to write and direct The Little Mermaid (1989) which John co-produced with Howard Ashman. Ron and John also wrote and directed a number of subsequent animated features including Aladdin (1992) Hercules (1997) Treasure Planet ( 2002) and The Princess and the Frog ( 2009.) John’s most recent project was Moana ( 2016) which he once again directed with Ron Clements, along with co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams. John retired from Disney Feature Animation in the spring of 2018, and in spring of 2023 completed animating by hand his own short film, “I’m Hip” which was selected to be screened at Annecy in summer 2023, one of 36 films picked from more than 3200 submissions. It has also begun a round of screenings at festivals around the world including the Animasyros festival in Greece in late September 2023, the BIAF festival in Seoul, Korea, where it won a Diversity award, and the Mill Valley Festival in California. John was thrilled that “I’m Hip” was one of the 15 films “short-listed” for selection in this year’s Oscars. John resides in La Canada, California, with his wife Gale, a former researcher at Disney, not far from two of his grown children: son Jackson and daughter Julia and her husband Michael. Son Patrick and wife Andrea and their three daughters now live in Columbus, Ohio. John loves to visit his granddaughters Lucy (7), Gwen (5) and Marigold (2) there in his role as “Boompah,” and delights when they come to visit him and Gale in California.
Niccolò Gioia
Italy
Niccolò Gioia is a director and animator who made his debut on YouTube, gaining millions of views thanks to stop-motion animations published on his Lumaken Studio channel. His studies, which include Cinema Engineering and the Aardman Academy, led him to the role of Head of Animation at the Turin-based Robin Studio and Animation Supervisor on several short films by the Rome-based Fantasmagorie Studio. Starting in 2026, following a long-term collaboration as a stop-motion animator on various short films, he became a member of COLA Animation.
Nancy Denney-Phelps
EUA
Nancy Denney-Phelps is a journalist writing about European animation and festivals as well as a producer of music for animation. Along with her composer/musician husband Nik Phelps, she co-founded the Sprocket Ensemble dedicated to presenting live performances of original music with screenings of contemporary animation from around the world. Nancy's writings have appeared in such publications as CARTOON and ANIMATOON as well as on her regular blog for AWN (Animation World Network). She is also a regular correspondent for ASIFA/San Francisco and a member of the ASIFA International Board of Directors.
Nancy has served on numerous International Animation Festival juries and taught time management for animators at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, School of Art and Design. Her strong interest in the history of animation has led her to present programs on the history of animation traced through music at many animation festivals and conferences worldwide.
Comfort Arthur
England
Comfort Arthur is a British-born Ghanaian award-winning animator, illustrator and visual artist. She trained at the Royal College of Arts before moving to Ghana to set up The Comfy Studio. Her short film Black Barbie has been an international hit and has screened in more than 100 film festivals across the world and has won several awards. In 2020 she released her first children’s picture book under the same name. She is the first Ghanaian animator to win the African Academy Movie awards for best animation for her web series I’m Living in Ghana Get Me Out of Here. Comfort Arthur has also worked as the Episodic director for Cbeebies Animated preschool show JoJo and Gran Gran in the United Kingdom.
Camila Kater
Brazil
Camila Kater is an animator, screenwriter and director from São Paulo, Brazil. He directed, scripted and animated the animated documentary CARNE (2019), a Brazil-Spain co-production. CARNE, available on The New York Times Op-Docs platform, was selected in more than 250 festivals such as Locarno International Festival, TIFF, Annecy, IDFA and received more than 90 national and international awards, being qualified for the Oscar® 2021 and selected on the Goya Awards shortlist. Kater produced in stop-motion productions, animation scriptwriter, art director and puppet in shorts such as "The Apple Trial" (2013), "Flerte" (2015); Indescribable (in production) and as art and animation assistant in the feature film “Bob Cuspe, we don't like people” (2021 - Contrechamp Prize in Annecy) by Coala Filmes. Kater holds a BA in Social Communication with a qualification in Medialogy from Unicamp, annex in Film and Television Production at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge (Recently, she received the Erasmus Mundus program for the program: ANIMA Animation which takes place on a master's scholarship in Cambridge) in three host countries: Belgium, Portugal and Finland. In February and December 2022, Kater is artist-in-residence at the Tricky Women Tricky Realities in the MuseumsQuartier festival in Vienna, Austria. Kater is co-founder/co-director of the independent LESMA (La Extraordinária Semana de Mostras Animadas) festival that has completed 4 editions at Unicamp.
Katie Bignell
England
Graduated from Bournemouth Media School in Scriptwriting for Film & TV and is also a graduate of the London Royal Court Writer Groups. She founded Festival Formula in 2014 after spotting a gap in the festival knowledge of filmmakers around film festivals. With 20+ years experience behind it they are providing strategy support to filmmakers world-wide. They're active members of the Short Film Conference and the Film Festival Alliance. Katie is also a key spokesperson on festival issues with coverage in The Hollywood Reporter and Screen Daily regarding suspect and fraudulent film festivals. She co-created the Filmmaker Lounge in partnership with Film Festival Alliance – an online space for programmers and filmmakers to discuss their roles. Previous speaking engagements include: HollyShorts, Heartland Film Festival, BFI Flare, Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Sundance, SXSW and many more. Selected prior jury service include: Cleveland International, Heartland International, St. Louis International, PÖFF Shorts Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortsfest, Young Directors Awards, Raindance, Manchester Animation Film Festival, Fantoche and more. She was the co-recipient of the Pioneering Spirit Award alongside her husband Ian Bignell which was awarded by Heartland Film. The company received the award for Outstanding Contribution to Film from London Breeze Film Festival in 2024, and the Impact Award from Poppy Jasper International Film Festival in 2025. In 2026 she is the Festival Expert in the inaugural online education programme launched by University of Exeter in conjunction with David Putnam's Atticus Education and Screen International.
Guilherme Bonini
Brasil
Professional film director, screenwriter and producer. His academic background is a master's degree in cinematographic narrative / image and sound from the Federal University of São Carlos – UFSCAR.
He works between cinema, video art and photography. As a result of these cultural projects in creating and producing independent projects, he created Bonini Filmes in 2011. Always with the objective of telling stories, its mission is to provoke sensations through image, seeking aesthetic and narrative innovation, in addition to the pleasure of experimentation.
With intense production since 2012, he had several works presented in Brazil and Europe.
Mattew Watkins
England
Artist, illustrator, designer, and speaker. Possessing a unique style, he has been showing the world how technology can be combined with art, resulting in a genuine injection of culture and animation.
Throughout his career, he has participated in several world festivals and exhibitions, such as Alberobello International Light Festival, Festival di Illustrazione e Dintorni, Digital Cities: Explorations of Video Mapping, Matthew Watkins, Uncontainable Art, TEDx, among others.
Ulisses Dias
Portugal
Director of the Bang Awards Festival and Bang Venue. He brings his experience as an actor and film producer and of musical events to the management of "SLINGSHOT - Design e Produções Multimédia, Lda." and "NAU Identidade - Comunicação e Promoção Turística, Lda.".
