Eric Steegstra studied at the Art Academy in Enschede and he gives puppetry performances and directs puppetry films. His first film was Usiku, after that he made the award winning puppet films Metro and Rif, which both received the prestigious Golden Calf award at the Dutch Film Festival in 1999 and 2008.

Metro also received the award for Best Animated Film at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Corto Imola festival. Rif has also been crowned with the Unicef Award at the Lago Film Festival.

www.freemwerk.nl/rif

Fons Schiedon is a designer, director and artist from the Netherlands, living in Berlin.

After graduating college in 2002 he established a company in Amsterdam providing illustration, graphic design and animation for clients such as MTV Asia, Nickelodeon, Submarinechannel, Esquire, Volkskrant Magazine and Park Avenue. In 2008, he relocated to the German capital.

Fons has had speaking engagements (ranging from 20 min. sessions to 8 hour workshops) at Pictoplasma Berlin and Pictoplasma New York, Kolla! Stockholm, Today’s Art Festival The Hague and Territorios Sevilla (University of Andalucia), Spain.

Other exhibitions and (film)screenings include institutions and festivals in Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Singapore, Seoul and Paris.

www.fonsschiedon.com

Nancy Denney-Phelps is an independent journalist who covers animation, animators and animation events. Her writing has appeared in Animation World Network, Animatoon and Cartoon Magazines and her blog has been up and running since 2005. She is also a music producer for animated film and together with her husband Nik Phelps, she founded the Sprocket Ensemble, a musical group that performs live music during contemporary animated films. Nancy is also a board member of ASIFA (Association Internationale du Film d’Animation) and writes for ASIFA/San Francisco.

Tommy Pallotta is a visionary storyteller who creatively blends technology with filmmaking, animation and interactivity. He helmed an interactive project based on Jonathan Lethem's novel Amnesia Moon for Microsoft and he directed the first Machinima music video, In the Waiting Line, and the rotoscoped MTV Breakthrough Video Destiny for the band Zero 7. He has produced several short animated films that garnered numerous awards, including Snack and Drink, which is now part of a permanent collection in the New York Museum of Modern Art. Tommy first connected Richard Linklater with animation when he produced the award-winning feature Waking Life. He followed that up with Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly and then turned to documentary films and directed American Prince. Now he is back with his latest creation -Collapsus, an online interactive conspira

Rosto and his Studio Rosto A.D have been producing acclaimed independent and commissioned work since 1992 in a wide variety of disciplines and media. Rosto is the director, designer, composer, animator, illustrator and more on Dutch television productions like R.A.M, Pinkpop and In Europa. His videos for Anouk won several awards and The Dark was voted the best Dutch music video ever.

He is best known internationally for his trilogy of short films Beheaded (the rise and fall of the legendary), Anglobilly Feverson, and Jona/Tomberry, which are all spin-offs of his universe Mind My Gap (www.rostoAD.com) of which Thee Wreckers: No Place Like Home is the most recent installment. Currently Rosto is working on an international coproduction: the medium length musical film The Monster of Nix (hitting the screens in 2011) next to his music project Thee Wreckers.

www.rostoad.com

Michael Minneboo is a freelance journalist and video director and editor, specialized in popular culture, film and graphic novels. He writes articles, interviews and reviews for the VPRO Guide, Het Parool, Zone 5300 and other outlets. He’s also active online as a blogger and vlogger and he gives lectures on his particular fields of interest and he has taught classes at the University of Amsterdam. Michael wrote his graduation thesis on film adaptations of graphic novels and he never stopped writing about popular culture since then. You can find his work on: www.michaelminneboo.nl

Stan Warnow was a cameraman and editor on the Academy Award winning documentary Woodstock, and produced, directed and was supervising editor on the award winning feature documentary In Our Hands. Much of his work has been on music films such as the concert film No Nukes and Message to Love, the story of the 1970 Isle of Wight Music festival. He also edited the 1968 cult classic The Honeymoon Killers.

Other work has involved an eclectic range of projects, including the feature film of the Broadway classic musical Hair, editing work for Saturday Night Live, the TV series The Wonder Years, and The Equalizer. He was also editor on the Emmy nominated PBS documentary The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, produced by Great Projects. More recent work has been as editor on the documentary features Rittenhouse Square, directed by Robert Downey Sr.; Music From The Inside Out, produced and directed by Danny Anker; and La Maestra In The House, produced and directed by Julia D’Amico.

Stan Warnow will present the splendid documentary Deconstructing Dad about his father, Raymond Scott on Friday.

www.waterfallfilms.com

The renowned Japanese animator Akinori Oishi will paint a mural during the course of the festival. He has directed a variety of award winning animated films including the ultra short Micro Films, published several books that are much in demand and he’s exhibited all over the world. So come and see a master work his mojo!

aki-air.com