Kārlis Vītols is an award-winning Latvian animation director, visual artist and screenwriter with over twenty years of experience. Trained in graphic art and painting at the Art Academy of Latvia, he combines painting, experimental animation and handcrafted techniques. His largely self-made short films have been recognised at Annecy, Oberhausen and the Latvian National Film Awards. They include Minotaur (2016), The End (2019), now in the Latvian National Museum of Art collection, and The Swan Maiden (2020). His debut feature, The Northern Star (2027, in production), developed through the CEE Animation Workshop and presented at Cartoon Movie 2025, marks a shift from myth to history and from solitary authorship to collective creation for a family audience.