Jurys

Akin Akinsiku is a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award winning creative and director with over 15 years experience working in children’s TV and advertising. A multipole discipline storyteller, his works ranges from writing and directing commercials for household brands like Microsoft to creating pioneering branded content / short and long form in the kids space. Akin Akinsiku also works across both the animation and live action genres. He has worked with MTV, The Walt Disney Channel and was art director at Nickelodeon for over eight years. His works have been broadcast internationally, including Germany, Turkey, South Africa, Poland and USA. Akin Akinsiku is a company director of Five Apples, and a co-creator, director and writer on BAFTA nominated CBeebies pre-school drama „Apple Tree House“.

Daria Kashcheeva studies animated film at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague. Her student films were featured at many international festivals. Daria Kashcheeva’s original “To Accept” (2017) won the Nespresso Talents film competition at Cannes Film Festival. Her Bachelor’s puppet animation “Daughter” (2019) had its premiere at the Annecy Animation Film Festival and received the Cristal Award for the best student film and the Young Jury Award in the student film section there. At the ITFS 2020 it won the Young Animation Award. The film won the 46th Student Academy Award in the category International Animation, the Short Film Jury Award for Animation at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 and was nominated for the 92nd Academy Award for the best short animated film. Currently she is preparing her master-degree film “Electra. A Poem” in stop motion pixilation technique.

Daniel Höpfner is an experimenter and innovator of stop motion film. He graduated from the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF and has been working as a freelance filmmaker and musician since 2007. He began his film career in the early 1990s with anarchic Super 8 films and abstract-visual experiments. His stop motion and puppet animation films have won numerous awards, including the prize for “Most Imaginative Film” at the Odense Film Festival for “Cherchez la femme” (2002) and the German Short Film Award in Gold for “Anhalter” (2008).

Reza Memari is an award-winning animation screenwriter and director. He is the author, editor and co-director of “A Stork’s Journey” (2017), which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and became a worldwide critical and commercial success. In 2018 he co-founded Telescope Animation Studios in Berlin and Hamburg. The company is developing “The Last Whale Singer” (2024), an epic underwater story universe consisting of a feature film, a video game, a series, and an XR experience. He lives in Berlin and Brooklyn, New York.

Hideki Nagaishi launched “Animationweek”, an online interview magazine for global animation professionals, in London after completing his master’s degree in Innovation Management at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, following his research on the development of innovative animation and comics by fusing different cultures. Since its founding, he has been interviewing as editor-in-chief the leading animation professionals from around the world with his passion in facilitating international collaboration among animation creators to create groundbreaking animation.

Irene Wellershoff was head of the editorial department of ZDF’s children’s programme until 2020. Many years ago, she invented “Siebenstein”, where animated short films have had a permanent place ever since. In addition to numerous series (including “Pingu”, “Ritter Rost”, “Biene Maja”, “Wickie”, “Petzi”, “Lieselotte”), feature films (including “Hände weg von Mississippi”, “Bibi und Tina”, “Pettersson und Findus”, “Timm Thaler”, “Die Heinzels”) and the initiative “Outstanding Films for Children” she is responsible for the series “Märchenperlen”. The programmes of her editorial office have won numerous German and international prizes, such as the Prix Jeunesse, the German Film Award, the Goldener Spatz, the Japan Prize, the Geisendörfer Prize and the Grimme Award. In 2018, she was awarded the Hanauer Märchendozentur. Since 2020 she has been working on projects of her own.