Eric Darnell is Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of the Emmy award winning and leading VR animation studio Baobab Studios, whose mission is to inspire you to dream by bringing out your sense of wonder. Started by industry leaders Maureen Fan (Zynga VP of Games, Farmville Franchise), Eric Darnell (Director of all 4 Madagascar films), and Larry Cutler (Dreamworks’ Head of Character Tech, Pixar TD Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Oscar tech judge), the company’s Emmy-award winning VR animation, INVASION!, starring Ethan Hawke, launched to substantial critical acclaim and has become the top downloaded VR app. In a first, Hollywood is taking IP from VR to become a feature film: Roth Kirschenbaum Films (Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman) has signed on to adapt INVASION! into a big screen feature film “flattie”.

Baobab Studios first VR experience INVASION! garnered laurels from film festivals globally including Sundance, Toronto, Cannes and is currently a top ranking download on major VR platforms including Oculus, VIVE, PSVR, Samsung, Within, Hulu and others. Their follow up experience ASTEROIDS! starring Elizabeth Banks was an official 2017 selection for both Sundance and Cannes and recently won the “Outstanding Interactive Media” 2018 Daytime Emmy. Crow: The Legend, their most recent production, stars John Legend, Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Eagle Heart, Randy Edmonds, Liza Koshy, Tye Sheridan, Diego Luna, and Constance Wu and world premiered at the 2018 Venice International Film Festival.

Baobab was named Most Innovative Company for 2018 in the VR/AR category by Fast Company. Baobab has raised $31M to date making them one of the largest independent VR studios today. Baobab’s vision is to create experiences with the empathy of film, the agency of games, and ultimately the motivation of real life.

Eric’s career spans 25 years as a computer animation director, screenwriter, story artist, film director, and executive producer. He was the director and screenwriter on all four films in the “Madagascar” franchise, which together have grossed more than $2.5 billion at the box-office. He was also executive producer on “The Penguins of Madagascar.” Previously, Eric directed DreamWorks Animation’s very first animated feature film, “Antz,” which features the voices of Woody Allen, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, and Sharon Stone. Eric earned a degree in journalism from the University of Colorado and a master’s degree in experimental animation from The California Institute of the Arts.

Ribon was first tapped by directors John Musker and Ron Clements to work on Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Moana (2016). She also worked on Disneynature’s Bears (2014), scripting John C. Reilly’s narration. It was there she worked with Rich Moore and Jim Reardon—which ultimately led to her current assignment with Ralph Breaks the Internet.

In the comic book world, Ribon recently released two critically-acclaimed original graphic novels My Boyfriend is a Bear and Slam!, and penned issues of Rick and Morty for Oni Press. Her comedic memoir, Notes to Boys (And Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public), which dissects her lengthy love notes and awkward essays from her high school years, was called Brain-Breakingly Funny by NPR. Ribon previously served as a writer on Samantha Who? for ABC. She has published four novels: You Take It From Here, Going in Circles, Why Moms Are Weird and Why Girls Are Weird. She was a flagship contributor to Television Without Pity.

Ribon earned her BFA in acting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she also wrote, performed, and directed original material for Hyde Park Theatre, HBO’s Aspen Comedy Festival and the award-winning comedy troupe Monks’ Night Out.

She resides on the east side of Los Angeles. She is between pets.

Ruben Brandt, Collector

Milorad Krstić is a Middle European artist who was born in Dornberk, Slovenia, in 1952. He took a degree in law at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Since 1989 he’s been living and working in Budapest, Hungary as a painter and multimedia artist. He immersed himself into different fields of visual art through painting, drawing, sculpting, documentary films, stage design, set design, photography, interactive CD-ROM, etc. For his first short animated film, My Baby Left Me, he was awarded with a Silver Bear in 1995 at the Berlin Film Festival. For his interactive CD ROM, Das Anatomische Theater, he won a MIFA award for The Best Interactive Project in Annecy, 1999.

Bio TK

Bio TK

Born in Fukuoka Prefecture. Affiliated to Studio VOLN. Studied abroad at a Los Angeles college majoring in design, and later joined Madhouse USA. After returning to Japan, his credits include Storyboard・Production for HUNTER×HUNTER (2011), Assistant Director for One Punch Man (2015) and All Out!! (2016). The animated film I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (2018) will be his first Directorial role.

Titi and the Birds

André Catoto was born in Rio de Janeiro. He is the director of the films Segredo (2008) and Say I am Only Seventeen (2015). Tito and the Birds (2018) is his first feature.

Tito and the Birds

Gabriel Bitar is an animator, painter, and photographer based in São Paulo. He has directed the short film The City and Desire Nº5 (2010). Tito and the Birds (2018) is his first feature film.

Tito and the Birds

Gustavo Steinberg was born in São Paulo and works as a producer, screenwriter, and director. His films include End of the Line (2008). Tito and the Birds (2018) is his latest feature.

Pachamama

Juan Antin was born in 1969 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He studied traditional animation and then continued his studies on 3D animation in Montreal, Canada.

Since 1998, he is in charge of the animation department at Universidad del Cine (Buenos Aires). He directed more than 70 animated films (shorts, TV series and video clips, using different techniques such as stop-motion, 2D, 3D and experimental animation.

His first feature film Mercano, The Martian (2002), was awarded in many festivals like Annecy, acclaimed by the international press and distributed in 20 countries across the world.

Joined Platige Image in 2005. Graduate of the National Film School in Lodz. Directed three short animations: The Aim (2005), The Great Escape (2006), and Paths of Hate (2010). The latter was screened at over 90 film festivals and ended up garnering 25 awards and honors. In 2011, he directed City of Ruins, an animated documentary commissioned by the Warsaw Uprising Museum. In 2013, he directed the Hunger Is a Tyrant commercial, commissioned for the UN Zero Hunger Challenge. On Another Day of Life, he’s responsible primarily for directing 3D animation.

Another Day of Life
In 2015, Raúl de la Fuente’s film Minerita was shortlisted for the 88th Oscars© Academy Awards as Best Short Documentary Subject. The film won in 2014 the Goya Award, from the Spanish Cinema Academy. Minerita has been screened in more than 140 film festivals and has won 45 international prizes. His first feature film Nömadak TX was the most awarded Spanish documentary film in 2007 (17 prizes and more than 150 selections in film festivals).
As Ryszard Kapuscinki, the main character of the film, Raúl de la Fuente has travelled around the world in search for stories, directing films in India, Angola, Lapland, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba, Bolivia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Russia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania, USA, Canada, Qatar, UK, Switzerland, New Caledonia, Haiti, Benin, Colombia, Mozambique, Togo…

Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1988. Attended the school of art at Aichi Prefectural Asahigaoka High School. While he was there he began to produce animation, and in his second year he announced his first work Greeting of Love. He went on to study manga at Kyoto Seika University’s animation school in the department of manga. His 2009 self-produced Fumiko’s Confession became a hit for its sense of speed that sucked you in, as well as its incredible quality. It went on to win the 14th Ministry of Culture’s Media Arts Festival Animation Award, the 2010 Ottawa International Animation Festival Special Prize, and the 9th Tokyo Anime Award (Student Awards Division). His 2011 graduation work, rain town, won the 15th Ministry of Culture’s Media Arts Festival New Creator’s Animation Award, giving him the award two years in a row.

In 2013, he made his theatrical debut with Hinata no Aoshigure, in which he was director, scriptwriter, and animator. Despite its simple story, this movie became a hit for its fast pacing, and won the Special Judge’s Recommendation Award in the animation division of the 17th Ministry of Culture’s Media Arts Festival. In 2013 he created Paulette’s Chair, the 10th Special Animation for Fuji TV’s Noitamina.

This will be his first time directing a full-length movie.

Salvador Simo started working in traditional animation at Pegbar Studio, Barcelona, in 1991, painting cells and making Xerox copies. He then went on to study at the American Animation Institute in LA, taking an evening course for six months and working during the day as assistant animator at Bill Melendez Prod, on the Peanuts shows.

Upon returning to Spain, he started a career as freelance animator for several studios in Madrid and Barcelona, and a year later joined Disney Studios in Paris as assistant animator for the feature film Goofy & Max. Afterwards, he stayed in Paris to work as an artist for Disney’s department of Publishing and Consumer Products.

A year later, he went back to Barcelona while still working for Disney as a freelancer and created a small studio with Disney as main client for over four years. That allowed him to study directing at Barcelona’s CECC Film School, where he began to learn about 3D animation.

He directed a couple of animated shorts, the second supported by Open Workshop, in the Animation Workshop in Viborg (Denmark), and also taught for a year and a half.

He then decided to delve into the VFX world, joining the Revisualisation and Layout Department at MPC London, where he put to use his storytelling and cinematography skills in films such as Narnia, Prince Caspian, Wolfman, Prince of Persia, and James Bond, Skyfall, among others.

In 2008, he started directing a TV show in Bangkok for one season and eventually ended up doing 4 seasons of Max Adventures with more than 500 min of CG animation.

When he returned to Spain he directed some small projects and, in 2014, was asked by MPC to lead some sequences in the layout department for Disney’s new Jungle Book, which won the Oscar for Best VFX. After that, he collaborated with the team in MPC Montreal on Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Men Tell No Tales.

He was then commissioned to co-write and direct the film Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, for which he moved back to Spain.

Seder-Masochism

Nina Paley is the creator of the critically acclaimed animated musical feature film Sita Sings the Blues. Her adventures in our broken copyright system led her to join QuestionCopyright.org as Artist-in-Residence in 2008, where she produced a series of animated shorts about intellectual freedom called Minute Memes. Seder-Masochism is her second feature.

Okko’s Inn

Born in 1962. Kosaka starts his career as an animator at Oh! Productions. After leaving the company on 1986, he has worked on many titles as the animation director and key animator for Studio Ghibli, such as Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind to name a few. He has also worked on many MADHOUSE productions, such as Yawara! and Master Keaton among others. He made his directorial debut with Nasu: Summer in Andalusia which was premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2003. In 2014, Kosaka was awarded as Best Animator for Director Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises at Tokyo Anime Award Festival.

Mamoru Hosoda was born in 1967 in Toyama. After graduating from Kanazawa College of Art, he joined Toei Doga studio (now Toei Animation Co, Ltd) and began his career as an animator.

In 1999, he directed his first 20 min. short film, Digimon Adventure, which was released in theaters.

In 2000, he directed a forty-minute sequel, Digimon Adventure: Our War Game!!!, and attracted critical attention thanks to his novel, cutting-edge style. He also introduced what would become recurring themes in his filmography. He became independent shortly afterwards and directed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in 2006 (an adaptation of the well-known novella by Yasutaka Tsutsui). The film was met with great enthusiasm, and its success exceeded all expectations, remaining on Japanese screens for one year. It was then released in numerous countries, including France, where audiences discovered Hosada’s work on the big screen. In 2009, he directed his first original work: Summer Wars. The aesthetics of the film are reminiscent of those found in Digimon.

In 2011, with Yuichiro Saito (the producer who has accompanied him throughout his career), he created his own animation studio, Studio Chizu, and spearheaded a new movement in theatrical animations.

The studio’s first production, Wolf Children (2012), followed by The Boy & The Beast (2015), cemented Hosoda’s popularity in Japan and abroad, particularly in France.