Archives: Biographies

Nina Bergström, born 1962 in Karlstad, is a director, screenwriter, actor and animator for film and theatre. Bergström has a background as an actor and director in theater and made her debut as a film director in 1996 with the award-winning feature film Väninnor – berättelser från garderoben. Later studied film, animation and art, and from 2000 worked with animation as an animator, supervisor and director of feature films and TV series; Free Jimmy, Redningsskøyta Elias, Knerten, Trolljegeren, Blekkulf and others who were rewarded with prizes and nominations, among others. Emmy, Amanda and Annecy Crystal.

Since 2018, she has been working as a university lecturer at Høgskolen i Innlandet, BA digital art and animation. Bergström’s personal film, Pappa (2016) received Nordic Doc’s honorable mention and has been purchased by the National Library. Is developing new original projects.

Over 15 years of experience as an Animator and Animation Director has earned Jens a solid reputation within the international stop-motion feature film industry. He has worked on several high-profile productions for names like Wes Anderson, Tim Burton and Laika Studios. He is a co-founder of the animation and theatre company Rainy Day Productions.

Torgeir is a partner and Creative Director of 3D & VFX in Netron AS. He studied graphic design at SFGD in Oslo, and has worked with design, 3D animation and motion graphics since 1996 in companies like Union Design, Kjeks, Simian – and now Netron – while working with clients such as TV2, TVNorge, Monster, Tiden, Oslo International Film Festival, Digdir, Petroleumstilsynet, Tank, Mack, Telenor, Statoil, WWF, DNV, Assa Abloy, Kygo, TONO and Universal Music. Torgeir is also one of the organizers of the annual computer graphics conference End User Event in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

In 2014 Luce Grosjean founded Sève Films, a distribution company destined to promote student films in animation festivals, as well as young talented directors. In 2017, she associated with Miyu Productions to create Miyu Distribution, which specialised in distribution at festivals and international sales for animation. Four of the films that she distributed have been nominated at the Oscars, one at the César, and her films are known international successes.  Her company received the award of the best short film distribution company in 2020 by UniFrance and La Fête du Court Métrage.

Mark Burton is a British television writer, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and film director, that currently is working on Paddington 3. He co-wrote and co-directed Shaun the Sheep Movie, which received Oscar and BAFTA nominations for Best Animated Feature in 2015. Later he was involved as a writer and executive producer for the sequel film Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon which was released in 2019. Other film credits include Gnomeo & Juliet, Aliens in the Attic, and Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which won an Oscar in 2006 for Best Animated Feature. Mark Burton also has a script credit for Madagascar, which was based on an original idea by him and Billy Frolick.

The music artist True Cuckoo is the animator Andreas Paleologos, a multi-artist who for the first time will create an animated concert experience exclusively for the audience in Fredrikstad. In this year’s edition of Animated Live, True Cuckoo offers positive, playful, and small-scale electronica, a delightful mix of new and old sound, and equally exciting animation on the screen. “I play synth on Youtube” is Cuckoo’s own words about himself – with his diverse background in animation, visual arts, and music, striving for simplicity is an important factor for Cuckoo.

Cuckoo is best known for his presence on Youtube, where the melodies and music are conjured up from thin air during recording while sharing all his ill-concealed secrets to his great entourage.

Trygve Nielsen is a Ph.D. student in filmmaking who is especially interested in the connections between drawing, animation, and music. He has made independent short films, commissioned films, and illustrations, and made music for film and theater, along with teaching animation and film at Volda University College.

M. Javad Khajavi is an award-winning multi-disciplinary designer, animator, developer, and researcher who works at the intersection of art, design, and technology. Javad made his first animation by writing a computer code in 1995 at the age of ten and has been interested in the intersection of art and tech since then. He is tech-savvy and whose works span several disciplines including 2D and 3D animation, game technology, and virtual reality. Currently, he is an associate professor at Volda University College in Norway where he leads the Animated Arts and Media Research Group. Previously, he was an assistant professor at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He is the founder of Fanoos Studio and Vertical Cosmos, and a graduate of Nanyang Technological University’s Ph.D. program in media arts + design in Singapore. He is deeply invested in interdisciplinary research approaches that are informed by practice-oriented research, design thinking, and analytical methods and tools in engineering.

Laura Søndergaard Isaksen is a project manager and researcher of Animated Learning with an educational background in pedagogy and an M.A. in Philosophy of Education. She has been working with Animated Learning since 2016 on a variety of projects within film and media literacy and she has been teaching children, youngsters and teachers, pedagogues and students how to use animation in both creative and learning processes.

Ray Whitcher is a lecturer and practitioner of animation hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa, now lecturing at Uppsala University, Sweden. In his professional career, Ray has animated lyric videos for clients including Marshmello, YungBlud, and Corey Taylor, illustrated comics for Star Wars: Clone Wars Confidential as well as various illustrative and design projects. In his lecturing capacity, Ray teaches 2D animation for video games, concept art development, critical theory, and professional practice (including pitching). He has also published scholarly articles on Comic Practices in Africa, Intermediality, and Curatorial Practice.

Sophie Mobbs is an associate professor at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. Prior to working in higher education, Sophie spent 10 years working as an artist and animator in the games industry for companies that included Sony, Silicon Dreams, and Rebellion, contributing to eight published games across various platforms. She now specialises in teaching 2D and 3D animation, character creation, and art for computer games and XR applications. Her research interests focus on serious games and in particular the application of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality games and experiences as medical treatments.

Fredrik Fottland is an award-winning producer, with more than 20 years of experience in the animation industry. He co-founded the animation and visual effects studio Expanse in Oslo, which works with feature films, TV-series, and the advertising industry. Expanse has just provided 19 minutes of character animation for Fantefilms live-action animated Christmas film Teddybjørnens Jul. Fredrik has co-produced the animated short films Odd is an egg and Rulletrappen, and is credited as an animation producer and 3D artist on numerous animated feature films. He has a B.A. in multimedia design from Monash University.

Leena Lecklin is a storyboard artist and animator living in Helsinki, Finland. She has worked in the animation field all around Europe, most recently in Cartoon Saloon for the movie Wolfwalkers and then at Gigglebug Entertainment for various projects, such as Unstoppable Yellow Yeti a TV-series and the upcoming Christmas comes to Moominvalley short film. Currently, she is working as a storyboard artist for the Tom and Jerry Time TV-series. As a storyboard artist, she is most interested in telling the story through the characters and their actions.

Sanne Jehoul works across the short film slate of Vienna-based sales & festival distribution agency Square Eyes. She is also the programme director of the Glasgow Short Film Festival, Scotland’s leading short film event. Additionally, she freelances across curation and writing, led the industry programme at Vienna Shorts 2022, and sits on the Board of Trustees of Glasgow Artists’ Moving Image Studios.

Yasuhiro Yoshiura is a writer and director. He started animation production while he was in college, and after graduating, he made his own animation Pale Cocoon. Since then, he has been active in production. Time of Eve in 2020 was his directorial debut. Since then, he has mainly written and directed original works.

Toshio Suzuki (b. 1948 in Nagoya, Japan) is the producer and executive director of Studio Ghibli. Suzuki graduated from Keio University with a degree in Literature in 1972 and joined the publishing company Tokuma Shoten Co. Ltd. After working for the weekly magazine Asahi Geino, he cofounded the monthly animation magazine Animage. While serving as co-editor, and later chief editor of Animage, Suzuki took part in the production of films by Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, including Nausicaä of the Valey of the Wind (1984), Grave of the furefklies (1988), and My Neighbor (1988). He participated in the founding of Studio Ghibli in 1985 and has worked at the studio since 1989, producing almost all of Studio Ghibli’s theatrical films including Only Yesterday (1991), Pom Poko (1994), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Ponyo (2008), The Wind Rises (2013), Earwig and the Witch (2020) and the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka which opened in 2001. Credited as planning for The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (2013) and executive producer for When Marine Was There (2014), he is also the producer of the Japanese-French co-production The Red Turtle (2016). He also hosts his own radio program “Sweating Ghibli” on Tokyo FM since 2007. Suzuki is producing a new feature Kimitachi Wa Do Ikiruka (How will you Live)?) directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

Koji Takeuchi began his career at Nippon Animation Co. in 1976 as a member of the production team. He worked on various hit TV-series with directors Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. In 1980, he joined Telecom Animation Film Co. and worked on many TV-series and feature films such as Lupin the 3rd, Sherlock Hound, Chie the Brat, and Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. Additionally, he worked with many non-Japanese studios including Warner Bros. Animation and Walt Disney Television Animation. Recently, he has devoted his time to young animation creators and has designed workshops with the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs since 2011. In addition, he established the Japan Educational Network of Animation. In 2013, he studied Animation Education at Gobelins, l’école de l’image in Paris. From 2014 to 2019, he directed the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs commissioned project, ANIME TAMAGO. He took up the position of the festival director of the Tokyo Anime Award Festival in 2016 and has been holding the post since then.

Eiko Tanaka is a producer who has participated in many animated films and has accomplished highly acclaimed projects with STUDIO4℃. Genres of her productive efforts vary from theatrical movies, short films, TV-series, music clips, and commercials, to newly adopted media such as stereoscopic visions and projection mappings. Tanaka has produced films such as MEMORIES, Spriggan, Princess Arete, THE ANIMATRIX, and MIND GAME. Tekkonkinkreet, was also produced by Tanaka and won the Japan Academy Award for Best Animation Film and was also selected at Berlinale. Tanaka also contributed to co-creation projects with international companies such as Batman: Gotham Knight and Thundercats, and Halo Legends as a producer. MUTAFUKAZ was an ambitious project co-created with the French company Ankama. After 5 years of production, Children of the Sea was released in more than 30 countries. The latest films Poupelle of Chimney Town and Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko have been invited to lots of international film festivals, and also released and enjoyed in many countries.

Heikki Jokinen has been a freelance journalist and critic since 1986. He has an M.A. in political science and comparative cultural research. His articles have been published in over 125 newspapers and magazines around the world. He has written or edited 20 books and lectured at art universities on five continents. Jokinen has been a member of more than twenty juries and selection committees on the film festivals including Annecy, Stuttgart, and Zagreb animation festivals. In the 1990s, he was a member of the Animerte Dagers festival and selection committees. Jokinen is the former vice-president of ASIFA. He has been chair of the Finnish Animation Association, the Finnish Critics’ Association, and the Finnish Comics Society. Now, he is a board member of Cartoon – European Association of Animation Film and chair of Kopiosto, the collective management organisation for reprographic and audiovisual authors’ copyright.

Andreas Emil Lund is a trained illustrator from the Vocational School Kristiania. He discovered animation during his education when he wanted several mediums and techniques for storytelling. As a self-taught animator, Andreas has developed a unique animation style that does not necessarily follow general animation principles. The animations Andreas creates have served as a method for developing a distinctive style as an illustrator and designer, which really engages and at times provokes. It’s far from Oscar material, but an experience quite out of the ordinary, and has been nominated and won awards, both at home and abroad.