Steven Subotnick (USA)

Steven’s animations are condensed and poetic. Through an experimental and iterative process of making and editing, he explores resonances found in subjects as diverse as history, science, evolution, and religion. His artwork begins in the physicality of materials – paper, ink, paint, paper-mache, rags, photographs, wood – which are then transformed through digital manipulation. His goal is to embody ideas in the act of making – a film about evolution is drawn straight-ahead with closed eyes. Sound is an important part of his filmmaking. He crafts tracks in order to give voice to the images, and it is the combination of image and sound which creates the film’s full identity.

Steven’s films have screened in festivals, galleries, museums, and curated shows around the world. He is the recipient of major grants and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an LEF Fellowship, and an AFI Fellowship. His films have won such awards as “Grand Prix” at the Holland Animation Film Festival and the “High Risk Award” at the Fantoche Animation Festival. In 2018, he had a retrospective of his films at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. He has received residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Yaddo Corporation. Steven is also a dedicated teacher. He has taught animation for over thirty years at colleges and universities, including Harvard University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Rhode Island School of Design, where he currently teaches senior animation thesis projects.

Maya Yonesho (Germany)

Maya Yonesho was born in Japan and now resides in Stuttgart, Germany. Her abstract animated works explore wordless intercultural and interpersonal understanding using landscape, sound, and voice. Since 2006 she has traveled to 22 countries in 3 continents, conducting animation workshops and making personal films to create her “Daumenreise” series. These works set individual expressive, hand-held, animations in real places enabling viewers to see personal visions in collective spaces. In addition to this ongoing work, Maya does freelance animation and lectures internationally. She believes that animation has the power to celebrate culture and community and create bridges worldwide.

Lea Vidakovic (Croatia)

Lea Vidakovic is a multimedia artist, film director, researcher and educator working in the field of animated installations, expanded media practices and traditional puppet animation. She holds a BA/MA as graphic artist and painter (Academy of Arts, Zagreb); BA in animation (HVO, Norway); MA of audio-visual arts (KASK, Belgium); and a PhD in animation studies (NTU/ADM Singapore). Her research interests include fragmented narratives and storytelling approaches for animated installations, expanded cinema and storytelling. She has exhibited her artworks internationally on numerous solo and group exhibitions and on over 300 animation festivals. Her latest film The Family Portrait won 49 awards including a Rigo Mora award which qualified the film for the 2025 Oscars. Lea teaches animation at Lusofona university in Lisbon. www.leavidakovic.com

Francesca de Bassa (Italy)

Francesca de Bassa is an Italian-born filmmaker and animation director whose work inhabits the space between the surreal and the emotionally raw. After studying Literature and Philosophy at the University of Bologna, specialising in Contemporary Art History, she trained in Animation Direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Turin.

Based in London since 2013, she works across advertising, music, media, and virtual production, continually evolving her practice through emerging technologies, including Virtual Production (NFTS, 2023) and Video-Mapping (Abbaye de Fontevraud 2023).

Her films are marked by eccentricity, irreverence, and a refusal to conform, pushing visual storytelling into unexpected territory. Her award-winning short Nothing We Say Can Change What We’ve Been Through has been recognised internationally, receiving Best Experimental Film at Hastings Rocks International Film Festival (2025), Best Director – Micro Short Film at Future of Films Awards (2024), Best Super Short Film at Cambridge Short Film Festival (2024), and Best Animated Film at Reale Film Festival (2024).

Iva Tokmakchieva (Bulgaria)

Iva Tokmakchieva (1994) is a Bulgarian animation director who graduated in Animation from New Bulgarian University in 2019. Her student film Let’s Meet Yesterday was selected at numerous international festivals and received several awards, including the ASIFA Student Award in 2020.

She is part of the Bulgarian animation studio Compote Collective. Together with producer Vessela Dantcheva, she developed her debut short film Balconada at the CEE Animation Workshop 2021. The project won the Best Project Prize at the Bulgarian Film Society’s screenplay competition and was presented at the Balkan Pitching Forum (TAFF, 2020) and Mifa Pitches at the Annecy International Animation Festival (2021).

In 2025, Balconada was realized as a co-production between Bulgaria and France, produced by Vessela Dantcheva (Compote Collective) and Christophe Camoirano (Girelle Production).

Winner in the category Best Debut of the T-Short Festival 2025.