Joe Letteri
Joe Letteri has pioneered and developed many of the digital techniques that have become the standard in bringing photographic quality to high-end visual effects. As an artist, he has specialized in the creation of highly realistic imagery, from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, to the 25ft gorilla ‘Kong’ in King Kong, those which have done to win three Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects. Joe is currently based at Weta Digital working as Senior Visual Effects Supervisor on the production of Avatar (Twentieth Century Fox), The Lovely Bones (Paramount), Tintin (Dreamworks) and The Hobbit.
The Keynote Speech by Joe Letteri, featuring the world preview of the making of about the amazing last film by James Cameron.have place Wednesday on January 27th.
Merlin Crossingham
Merlin joined Aardman Animation in 1995 where subsequently he worked as Key Animator on Chicken Run and Second Unit director on Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of The Were Rabbit. More recently he was Supervising Animator for Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death. Merlin also filmed the world’s first stop-motion 3D IMAX test and has had the opportunity to work with the legendary Ray Harryhausen.
The Merlin Crossingham masterclass to know Aardman’s working method will take place on Friday January 29th.
Allison Abbate
Allison has made a career of working on the most innovative animated features in the business including The Rescuers Down Under, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Space Jam, Looney Tunes Back In Action and the internationally acclaimed BAFTA award winning, Iron Giant. In 2004 Allison relocated to the UK to work with Tim Burton and produce the Oscar nominated Corpse Bride. Most recently, she joined forces with acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson to produce the Fantastic Mr Fox.
Round Table about Stop-Motion animation also featuring Allison Abbate will take place on Thursday January 28th.
David Sproxton
David is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Aardman Animation together with Peter Lord which made two short animated films, Down and Out and Confessions of a Foyer Girl. David co-produced Aardman’s first feature film Chicken Run, the Wallace and Gromit feature The Curse of the Wererabbit, and the CGI feature Flushed Away, made in association with DreamWorks. He is now chairman of Encounters Festivals (Bristol’s celebration of the Short film) and a board member of At-Bristol and the National Film Television School.
Round Table about Stop-Motion animation also featuring David Sproxton will take place on Thursday January 28th.
Osbert Parker
Osbert is a freelance director who has worked at Quentin Tarantino’s production company A Band Apart as their first commercial director and as Steve Barron’s second unit director on Hallmark’s TV feature length Arabian Nights. Parker has been experimenting and crafting two short films that are receiving great acclaim on the film festival circuit. Film Noir and Yours Truly. He is currently creating the third short in his Noir trilogy.
Round Table about Stop-Motion animation also featuring Osbert Parker will take place on Thursday January 28th.
Mischa Rozema
Dutch director Mischa Rozema is co-founder and Creative Director of PostPanic, an Amsterdam-based creative outfit. Mischa’s work is fundamental to the reputation PostPanic has developed over the past 12 years and his uncompromising creative vision has won awards worldwide. Today Mischa is best known for his ability to take seemingly ordinary projects in unexpected creative directions. Mischa won a prestigious AICP Next award in the Experential Category for his direction of The Lost Ring trailers, part of a campaign created by AKQA San Francisco for the McDonalds sponsorship of the 2008 Olympics.
Misha Rozema will meet FFF public on Sunday January 31st and will show the commercial advertising made by Pos Panic.
Rob Chiu
London based Chiu has worked under the alias of The Ronin for 9 years as a Director of live action and animation. His short narrative based films have been featured in several film festivals while gaining awards along the way. He has given talks on his work at various design conferences such as Adobe Max, OFFF, Flash on the beach, FMX, Toca Me and FITC Toronto and is regularly invited to run workshops at Universities and institutions around the world with his work represented by both Curious Pictures and Stink.
Meeting with Rob Chiu will take place on Sundat January 31st. Chiu will introduce and comment an anthology about his best works.
Kai Christmann
Kay lives and works in Duesseldorf, Germany. He taught web and motion design at the University of Applied Science in Duesseldorf for 6 years, has worked as an art director in on-air promotion for the Disney Channel Germany and freelanced for TV-stations like VOX, RTL and WDR. He is a member of a group of independant comicbook artists in Düsseldorf and a member of Design Films since 2003, pursuing his interest in titlesequences.
Lessons about Saul Bass by Kai Christmann have place on Wednesday January 27th and Thursday January 28th.
Stefano Ricci
Stefano Ricci was born in Bologna in 1966. He currently lives in Hamburg. Since 1986, his drawings and comics have appeared in books and magazines both in Italy and abroad. In 1989 he published his first illustrated book, Dottori, and he has been alternating this kind of publications with comic strips such as Tufo, written by Philippe de Pierpont, and Anita, based on Gabriella Giandelli’s texts. In 1996 he founded the magazine «Mano» with Giovanna Anceschi, worked with several theater companies and he is currently teaching drawing in Gorizia and Hamburg. Since 2008 he has been co-directing the Mami Verlag publishing company, along with Anke Feuchtenberger.
Stefano Ricci will show his last short animation to the FFF public on Saturday January 30th. In the same day there will be his exhibition opening at Galleria Stamperia Squadro in Bologna (Via Nazario Sauro)
Riccardo Cangini
Riccardo Cangini is the founder of Artematica and has been active for over 20 years in the videogame sector. In 1990 he made I Play: 3-D Soccer, the first 3D Real Time soccer videogame in the history of entertainment; from 1990 to 1995 he worked at Simulmondo as designer, coder, graphic designer, up to production and sales manager. Since 1996 he has been directing the company called Artematica, which has become one of the leading Italian software houses.
Meeting with Riccardo Cangini, Videogames & Cinema: modelli di business a confronto, will take place on Friday January 29th.
Claudio Sinatti
Born in Milan in 1972, Claudio Sinatti is a multimedia director and artist. After starting as an illustrator, cartoonist and graffiti artist, in 1996 he co-directed his first music videoclip with Riccardo Struchil for Italian band Casino Royale, which won him the Best Italian Video Award at PIM. In the years that followed, he directed many video clips both in Milan and in New York for groups such as Eiffel 65, Sarah Jane Morris, 99 Posse, Neffa, Carmen Consoli, Articolo 31, Alex Britti, Alexia, Africa Unite and many more. In 1999 he founded the pioneer video collective Sun Wu-Kung.
Meeting with Claudio Sinatti will take place on Friday January 29th.
David Steinberg
David Steinberg, Head of Studio of Starz Animation (Toronto), since 29 years works in kids entertainment class. He worked as executive, producer and creative for more than 15 cinema releases for Major like Disney, Universal, Fox, MGM and Warner Brothers. In 2007 he has moved from Los Angeles to Toronto to lead Starz Animation.
Round Table about Canadian animation also featuring David Steinberg will take place on Friday January 29th.
Ghislain Cyr
Ghislain Cyr is the founder and president of Sardine Productions. Ghislain stands over all the works about production and coordinates all the commercial development activities on a nationwide and international level. Founded since 2002, Sardine Productions quickly established itself as a animation cinema society either in Canada or in other Countries. Sardine Productions works are either in 3D and 2D animation or in computer graphics.
Round Table about Canadian animation also featuring Ghislain Cyr will take place on Friday January 29th.