Director Joel Crawford is currently in production on Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. He most recently served as director of the DreamWorks Animation feature film The Croods: A New Age and as director of Trolls Holiday Special for NBC.

Crawford joined DreamWorks Animation in 2006 and quickly became an integral story artist on Trolls, Shrek Forever After Rise of the Guardians, Bee Movie and all three Kung Fu Panda films. Prior to joining DreamWorks, his story artist credits include The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water and Alvin &The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.

Crawford is an alumnus of The California Institute of the Arts.

Born 1966. Animation director and producer. After working as an episode director for “Eldoran Series” and “Gundam Series”, he made his debut as a director with “One Piece: Defeat Him! The Pirate Ganzack!” in 1998. Since then, he has directed many original-based works and own productions, including “PLANETES”, “CODE GEASS”, “Jungle Emperor: The Brave Can Change the Future”, “Revisions”, “Maria the Virgin Witch”, “Back Arrow” and “Skate-Leading Stars”.

This time, Goro Taniguchi is working on his first directorial work “ONE PIECE” again.

Inna Sahakyan has directed and produced feature-length documentaries, documentary series, and shorts, for over fifteen years. Following her feature-length debut co-directing the award-winning “Armenia’s Last Tightrope Dancer” in 2010, she directed “Mel” and “Aurora’s Sunrise,” completing both international co-productions in 2022. Inna also enjoys mentoring her native Armenia’s next generation of filmmakers.

Born in 1983, joined MADHOUSE in 2007.

She made her directorial debut at the TV series “BTOOOM!” in 2012.

She also worked as a production member with MADHOUSE main titles such as “Chihayafuru” (2011/TV), “Chihayafuru 2” (2013/TV), “My Story!!” (2015/TV), “Chihayafuru 3” (2019/TV), “No Game No Life” (2014/TV), “Hanayamata” (2014/TV), “Prince of Stride” (2016/TV),  and “No Game No Life Zero” (2017/MOVIE)

Benjamin Massoubre discovered the richness and diversity of animated cinema in the halls of the Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival. This interest quickly became a passion, then a vocation. After studying editing, Benjamin worked as an assistant on many live-action films and commercials before finally being able to work in animation. He worked first as an assistant editor then as an editor on various series and projects before moving on to feature films with prestigious films such as “At the Very Top of the World” and “Calamity” by Rémi Chayé, “The Big Bad Fox” by Benjamin Renner and Patrick Imbert, “Little Vampire” by Joann Sfar, “I Lost My Body” by Jérémy Clapin and “The Summit of the Gods” by Patrick Imbert.

Amandine Fredon came to cinema through drawing. After studying art, she naturally turned to animation, working mainly at the Folimage studio based in Valence for about fifteen years. Fredon specializes in the production of animated series for television, including “C’est bon” with Jean Pierre Coffe, “Ariol” from the comics of Emmanuel Guibert and Marc Boutavant, “Tu mourras moins bête” (You’ll Die Less Stupid), the adaptation of Marion Montaigne’s books for Arte.

Alê Abreu is a Brazilian film director, animator and screenwriter. In 2013, he released “The Boy and the World”, his second feature film. He won the Cristal for best feature film and the Audience Award at the Annecy Festival in 2014; among many awards, and was nominated at the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2016.

Creator and supervisor of the preschool animation series “Vivi Viravento: launched by Discovery Channel in 2018 in Brazil and Latin America. He is going to launch his third feature film “Perlimps” in June 2022 at the Annecy Festival.

After 25 years as an innovative short animation director, Kajsa Næss is ready for her feature film debut with TITINA. Næss is known for her playful, humorous and humanistic films. Her award-winning shorts have featured in prestigious festivals such as Clermont-Ferrand, Annecy and Tribeca. In addition to her many film awards, Næss has been granted the Norwegian Ministry of Culture’s Human Rights Award. Her dozen credits include It Was Mine (2015), It’s Up To You (2013), Deconstruction Workers (2008), Leonid Shower (2004) and Mother Said (1999). Kajsa founded the Oscar winning studio Mikrofilm together with producer Lise Fearnley in 1996.

With Viking Film producer Marleen Slot thrives to be a nurturing home for talents from all across the world, telling stories for audiences to strongly identify with, by filmmakers with whom she is closely connected. Viking Film believes in the power of real cooperation’s, being that with directors, writers, co-producers, financiers, crew and cast. Only in collectivity we are capable of bringing stories to a different level and attracting audiences from around the globe.

Since its establishment in 2011, Viking Film wants to create high-quality films for both the national and international market with a special focus on arthouse and animation films. Viking Film has (co)produced feature films by outstanding filmmakers from around the world, including DIRTY GOD (Sacha Polak, Sundance World Dramatic Competition and opening film IFFR, 2019), ROJO (Benjamin Naishtat, TIFF Platform and San Sebastian 2018), NEON BULL (Gabriel Mascaro, Venice Orizzonti and TIFF Platform 2015) and ZURICH (Sacha Polak, Berlinale Forum winner CICAE Art Cinema Award 2015).

Together with director Mascha Halberstad, Marleen opened in 2020 the Holy Motion Studio in Arnhem. The 600m2 animation studio is specialized in stopmotion animation and is currently finishing their first feature film, OINK.

Marleen worked as a producer at Lemming Film for many years. In 2007 she attended the EAVE producer’s training and in 2009 she participated in ACE. In 2013 she was selected Producer on the Move during the Cannes Film Festival. In 2020 she took part in Inside Pictures. Besides her work as a producer Marleen sees the importance of actively taking part in (inter)national film policy making. From 2016 until 2020 she has been chairman of the Netherlands Producers association.

Director Mascha Halberstad (1973) attended the ArtEZ Art Academy in Arnhem. She made animations for several feature films, including TAKING CHANCES (Berlinale Generation 2012) and HOW TO SURVIVE…

In 2012 she directed the short animation film GOODBYE MISTER DE VRIES. Also in 2012 she made the 13-episode animation series PICKNICK WITH PIE adapted from Thé Tjong-Khing’s books, which was broadcast by the VPRO and awarded the Cinekid Kinderkast Fiction – Jury prize 2013. Her film MUNYA IN ME won the Grand Jury Prize of the BANFF World Media Festival. In 2015, the Prodigy’s Liam Howlett asked her to make a music video for the song WILD FRONTIER. After that she directed several short films, the series FOX & HARE and the hilarious THE GREAT HUMMIMUMMI CHRISTMAS SPECIAL. At present she is finishing her first feature film, OINK and preparing the shoot of KING SAUSAGE, a 20’ musical prequeling OINK.

Together with producer Marleen Slot she built Holy Motion, a 600m2 animation studio where they animated the stopmotion film OINK and where many more stopmotion films will be produced in the feature.

Celebrated for his detailed spatial designs, use of transparent, airy colors and attention to depth of field, loundraw began his career as an illustrator when he was a teenager, finding early success on online platforms. He also created key visuals for various notable writers, including and illustration for the novel “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas,” which was later adapted to a theatrical film.

Outside of his work in illustration, loundraw’s debut original animation “Until Dreams Awaken” was released on YouTube in collaboration with the wildly popular Japanese rock band BUMP OF CHICKEN, and swiftly hit over 2 million views, and he was concept designer for the recent anime adaptation of Josee, the Tiger and the Fish.

Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, originally from Japan, is a filmmaker and painter. A graduate from The School of Visual Arts in New York, Dice has worked as a visual development/color key artist at Blue Sky Studios on ICE AGE, ROBOTS and HORTON HEARS A WHO!

His credits at Pixar Animation include Lighting Art Director for TOY STORY 3 and MONSTERS UNIVERSITY. After the success of Dice’s directorial debut, the Academy Award nominated short film THE DAM KEEPER, Dice left Pixar to co-found Tonko House Inc. with Robert Kondo.

Dice is passionate about charity work and spearheaded both The Totoro Forest Project and Sketchtravel and in 2021 was recognized for his charitable contribution to the animation community with the June Foray Award.

Robert Kondo is co-founder and president of Tonko House, a San Francisco bay area based studio focused on creating animated narrative content. Formerly an art director at Pixar Animation Studios on films such as Ratatouille andToy Story 3, he lends his unique design sensibilities and passion for storytelling as co-director of the Academy-nominated short film, The Dam Keeper.

Originally from Southern California, Robert graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena as an illustrator. Robert took on the roles of both executive producer and production designer of Tonko House’s highly anticipated event series ONI: Thunder God’s Tale. He’s currently writing and illustrating Curiosities, a bedtime read-aloud book in partnership with First Second Books.

Sara K. Sampson is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker based in Oakland, CA. Born and raised in Kentucky, she moved to California in 2012 to launch her career at Pixar Animation Studios. While there, Sara contributed to several features such as the Academy award-winning films COCO and INSIDE OUT.

After five years at Pixar, Sara left to oversee production on three films, which include the independent short, SONDER, the Emmy award-winning LOVE, DEATH, + ROBOTS episode, THE WITNESS, and Emmy award-winning Google Spotlight Stories film + VR experience, AGE OF SAIL.

Sara recently produced the Emmy-nominated Glen Keane Productions + Netflix Original Series, TRASH TRUCK. She is currently producing the Tonko House + Netflix Animated Event Series, ONI: Thunder God’s Tale, while continuing to write and direct independent films.

Senior Vice President, Development / Producer
Pixar Animation Studios

Lindsey Collins joined Pixar Animation Studios in May 1997. She has since worked in various capacities on a number of Pixar’s feature films. Collins’ film credits include “A Bug’s Life,” “Toy Story 2” and the Academy Award®-winning “Finding Nemo,” and “Ratatouille.” Collins also provided the voice of the character Mia in Pixar’s 2006 release, “Cars.”

Collins co-produced the Golden Globe® and Oscar® winning feature “WALL•E” with producer Jim Morris and director Andrew Stanton and was a producer on the Walt Disney Studios feature “John Carter of Mars.” Collins was also the producer of “Finding Dory” in 2016 after which she assumed the role of Pixar’s Vice President of Development. In her development role, Collins pioneered Pixar’s SparkShorts program, created to discover new storytellers, explore new storytelling techniques, and experiment with new production workflows. Most recently, Collins was the producer of Pixar’s feature film “Turning Red,” which released on Disney+ March 11, 2022.

In April of 2022, Collins was promoted to Senior Vice President of Development. In this new role, Collins leads the Development group at Pixar for features and streaming, where current and upcoming filmmakers originate story ideas and shape them into projects for production. She is a part of the Creative Leadership team, which supports Chief Creative Office Pete Docter in guiding the studio’s creative direction.

Prior to joining Pixar, Collins worked at Disney Feature Animation for three years, managing creative teams on the films “Pocahontas,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and “Hercules.”

Collins earned a Bachelor of Arts in Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She currently resides in Piedmont, California, with her husband and three children.

Ellen Goldsmith-Vein is the Founder and CEO of The Gotham Group, the only major management/production company in Hollywood owned solely by a woman. Based in Los Angeles, Goldsmith-Vein and The Gotham Group represent some of the most creative minds in the entertainment industry including top directors, writers, producers, authors, illustrators, and publishers.

She produced the films Stargirl and the sequel Hollywood Stargirl for Disney+, based on the best-selling work of author Jerry Spinelli, with AGT champ Grace VanderWaal making her film debut as the eponymous lead, Stargirl Caraway. . She is producing the animated feature film Wendell & Wild at Netflix in collaboration with Jordan Peele and acclaimed director Henry Selick and starring the voice talent of Key & Peele and Lyric Ross. Goldsmith-Vein/The Gotham Group are also producing My Best Friend’s Exorcism, based on the Grady Hendrix novel of the same name, directed by Damon Thomas, and starring Elsie Fisher, Amiah Miller, Cathy Ang, and Rachel Ogechi Kanu for Amazon.   

In television, Goldsmith-Vein and Gotham have a first-look deal at Disney Television Studios. The Gotham Group is currently in production on the animated series WondLa for Apple, based on Tony DiTerlizzi’s bestselling book trilogy, and is in pre-production on Percy Jackson for Disney+, the best-selling, blockbuster series by Rick Riordan. Gotham is in pre-production on Washington Black for Hulu, based on Esi Edugyan’s critically acclaimed novel, alongside Selwyn Hinds, Anthony Hemingway and Sterling K. Brown. 

Goldsmith-Vein and The Gotham Group produced the billion-dollar The Maze Runner franchise as well as the Netflix 2018 film Kodachrome with Jason Sudeikis, Elisabeth Olsen and Ed Harris. Goldsmith-Vein was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and won an Annie Award for Creature Comforts, the US version of the acclaimed UK series from Aardman Animations, and was chosen by VARIETY as a “Producer to Watch” in 2014.

Gotham has numerous publishing relationships with stalwarts such as Little, Brown and Company and Simon & Schuster. These close ties with publishers are designed to help “reverse engineer” projects from leading creatives as the basis for film and television projects. Many publishers and high-powered New York literary agents look to The Gotham Group to help find homes for their material, earning the firm the reputation as the “go to” firm for the best material in Hollywood. 

Goldsmith-Vein started her professional life in banking at Merrill Lynch. She then joined the venerable William Morris Agency in the television packaging department and segued to Nelvana Entertainment, where she worked developing animated film and television projects including Family Dog with Brad Bird and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, among others. 

She is a prolific political fundraiser and champion of many charities. Goldsmith-Vein serves on the Board of NAB/NFC for the Democratic National Committee, is a member of the National Finance Committee for Cory Booker, and served on the National Finance Committees for Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. She is a founding member of Barbara Boxer’s PAC for Change (March On) and sits on the Advisory Board of Common Sense Media. She is a member of the Blue Ribbon of the Los Angeles Music Center along with serving on the Board of Directors for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She is a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Science, serves as a mentor for the Junior Hollywood Radio & Television Society, and is a member of the advisory board for 826LA and the Young Storytellers Foundation. She also serves on the Board of Directors of P.S. Arts. She is a past Board member of Girls, Inc. – a highly regarded national non-profit youth organization dedicated to inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold – and was honored by the organization for her work and contributions to the arts, girls and women. She is also a member of Women in Animation and ASIFA-Hollywood.

In April 2020, Goldsmith-Vein created Gotham Reads, the YouTube channel which features bestselling children’s authors, celebrities and political figures reading beloved books for kids hard hit by the pandemic. Each unique video is an opportunity to educate, inspire, and entertain young readers while bringing families together wherever they are. Gotham Reads is partnered with a broad network of affiliated organizations including 826LA, Common Sense Media, Girls Inc., Imagine LA, P.S. Arts, Save the Children, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and Young Storytellers. Gotham Reads is now included in the PBS curriculum offered to LAUSD and on Common Sense Media’s free streaming service Sensical.

Goldsmith-Vein is married to entrepreneur Jon Vein, who has built several companies, including most recently Marketshare, an analytical software company which sold to Neustar in 2015. They have two children and live in Los Angeles. A graduate of UCLA, Goldsmith-Vein also attended Hollins College, where she received an honorary doctorate degree.

Henry Selick, p.g.a. (Director / Co-Screenwriter / Producer)

HENRY SELICK is the creative force behind the award-winning animated films Coraline – Laika’s first and still most successful feature – which he wrote, directed, and co-produced; the iconic The Nightmare Before Christmas, which he directed for producer Tim Burton and Disney; and the stunning James and the Giant Peach, which he directed for Disney. And now, in 2022, Selick has just completed his latest stop motion project, Wendell & Wild, for Netflix Animation. The film, based on his original story, was co-written and co-produced with Jordan Peele, who voices one of the titular characters along with Keegan Michael Key. Selick says his fantastical, scary, funny films are intended for “brave children of all ages” and believes that stop motion, the oldest form of animation and his chosen technique, is the most magical and timeless. 

Domee Shi began as a story intern at Pixar Animation Studios in June 2011, and was soon hired as a story artist on the Academy Award®-winning feature film “Inside Out.” Since then, she has worked on the feature films “The Good Dinosaur,” “Incredibles 2” and the Academy Award®-winning “Toy Story 4.” In 2015 she began pitching ideas for short films, and soon was green lit to write and direct “Bao” which won the Academy Award® for Best Animated Short Film. In her role as a Creative VP, Shi is involved in key creative decision-making at the studio and consults on films in both development and production. Shi most recently made her feature film directorial debut on “Turning Red,” which released on Disney+ March 11, 2022.

Shi graduated from the animation program at Sheridan College where she was fueled by her love of anime/manga, Disney, and Asian cinema influences that can be seen in her work to this day.

Shi was born in Chongqing, China and resided in Toronto, Canada most of her life. She currently lives in Oakland, California and notes that her love of animation is only rivaled by her love of cats.

Ji Zhao studied at the Communication University of China and UCLA. He has nine years of working experience in the field of filmmaking and has participated in the editing of a number of films home and abroad, such as The Karate Kid: The Grandmaster, Swordsmen and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Zhao worked as the editor and post-production supervisor of Little Door Gods, Tea Pets, Cats and Peachtopia.

Zhao made his directorial debut with co-director Amp Wong on Light Chaser Animation’s 2019 film White Snake, a breakout success in China and an official selection of Animation Is Film. In 2021, Zhao directed New Gods: Nezha Reborn, the first film in Light Chaser Animation’s New Gods universe, which re-imagines classic Chinese mythology. Zhao’s latest film, New Gods: Yang Jian, is the follow-up to New Gods: Nezha Reborn and the second entrant in Light Chaser Animation’s exciting new world.

Alberto Vázquez is an animation director, illustrator and cartoonist. His books and comics have been published in countries like Spain, France, Italy, Brazil and Korea. He has written and directed short animation such as Birdboy, Ramiro, sucia rata, Unicorn Blood and Decorado. His work has been nominated on two occasions for the Goya Awards, winning the Goya Best Animated Short Film in 2012. He has won over 80 awards in international events and his works have been exhibited in prestigious festivals worldwide as Cannes, Toronto, Annecy, Clermond-Ferrand, Animafest Zagreb and Slamdance. He just finished his first featured film Psiconautas, los niños olvidados based on his graphic with the same name.