Jury Members

An internationally respected critic and historian of animation, Charles Solomon has written on the subject for the New York Times, Newsweek (Japan), Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, The International Herald Tribune, Variety, the Manchester Guardian, and National Public Radio.

Dan Krall is an Emmy® and Annie award-winning artist, producer, and art director with over 25 years’ experience in the animation industry. He currently serves as Consulting Producer on Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, the upcoming animated series produced by Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Television and coming soon to HBO Max. Prior credits include popular titles such as Dexter’s Laboratory, The […]

Originally from England, Deborah Cook has designed and built costumes for every LAIKA film. Her designs for Kubo and the Two Strings won a nomination for Excellence in Fantasy Film by the Costume Designers Guild, and she received a Visual Effects Society nomination for Coraline. Detailed, in-depth research, innovation in small-scale fabric technology and expertise […]

Erick Oh is an Oscar nominated Korean filmmaker based in California, USA. His films have been introduced and awarded at numerous film festivals including Academy Awards®, Annie Awards, Annecy Animation Festival, Zagreb Film Festival, SIGGRAPH, Anima Mundi and more. Erick became an animator at Pixar Animation Studios from 2010 to 2016. Erick’s latest film OPERA […]

 Kristin Lowe is Chief Creative Officer, Features for DreamWorks Animation.  In this role, Lowe oversees feature development, casting and artistic management for the studio’s renowned feature film division. DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming 2022 feature slate includes The Bad Guys, an original film based on the best-selling books, and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the sequel […]

Myke Chilian is a Los Angeles based animator, storyboard artist, writer, voice actor, and musician. He is the creator and executive producer of the HBO Max series, Tig n’ Seek, which is produced by Cartoon Network Studios. Chilian has previously written and storyboarded for Cartoon Network’s Uncle Grandpa and helped establish the look for Adult Swim’s Rick […]

Peter Debruge is Variety’s Chief International Film Critic. He first joined the Variety team in 2005 as a features editor, compiling the magazine’s annual 10 Actors, Directors and Screenwriters to Watch lists as well as overseeing a range of special editorial sections, including those tied to the magazine’s philanthropy-driven Power of Youth and Power of Comedy events.

Ramin Zahed is an LA-based author and journalist who specializes in animation, visual effects, pop culture and indie films. He is the Editor in Chief of Animation Magazine and has written for Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, Sight and Sound and others. Among his recent books are The Art of The Mitchells vs. […]

Ray Pride is the longtime film critic of Chicago’s Newcity arts monthly and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine. His history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” in words and images will be published in 2022.

Raye Rodriguez is the Creator and Executive Producer of the upcoming Crunchyroll Original series High Guardian Spice. Raye graduated from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, Rodriguez began his career as a director, storyboard artist and character designer at Fox Animation Domination High-Definition (Fox ADHD). He served as a Character Designer at PUNY Entertainment […]

Born in Tijuana B.C., Sandra Equihua graduated from IBERO university with a bachelors in Graphic Design. She has had the opportunity to work as a graphic designer, illustrator and a character designer next to her husband, Jorge Gutierrez, in companies such as WB, Disney, Nick JR, and Nickelodeon. Both created the animated series El Tigre: […]