GRANDTOON / STUDENTOON / SUPERTUNE
MÉLODY BOULISSIÈRE is a French animation filmmaker whose work blends traditional techniques such as animated painting, oil pastel, and collage. Her graduation film Ailleurs (Somewhere) was selected for the Cinéfondation section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. In 2024, she co-directed the animated documentary Simply Divine with Bogdan Stamatin. The film received a Special Mention at IDFA Amsterdam and won the Mephisto 97.6 Award at DOK Leipzig, while continuing its international festival run with more than 100 selections and 15 awards. She co-writes and co-directs Patouille & Momo, a 26-episode children’s series created with Inès Bernard Espina and Clémentine Campos.The pilot won the CICLIC Award at Annecy and was selected at over 50 festivals worldwide. The full season is released on France Télévisions in 2026.
PETRA BALEKIĆ is a visual artist specializing in animation and graphics, with an emphasis on original work in the field of animated film. She graduated in graphic arts in 2013 and in animated film and new media in 2017 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. Her animated film Shadow is currently in festival distribution and has been screened at a number of international festivals, including Animafest Zagreb 2025 – in the Grand Short Film Competition – and the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, and was also awarded Best Animated Short Film at Supertoon 2025.
NIKOLA MAJDAK Jr. was born in Slovenia in 1972. He has an MFA from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, camera department. For the past 30 years he has been a freelance cameraman, animator, director and lecturer. His film “Rabbitland” (2013), co-directed with Ana Nedeljkovic, was awarded the Crystal Bear at the Berlinale. It has received numerous other awards and has been shown at more than a hundred festivals worldwide. Their second film Untravel (2018) was screened at Berlinale, Annecy and Sundance, nominated for the Annie Award and received numerous awards. Their third film “Money and Happiness” (2022) was premiered at Locarno film festival and screened at numerous festivals (Annecy, DOKLeipzig…). At present they are working on project development for their first animated feature film “New Rabbitland” and on 4th short animation film “After Party”. Working within their own studio, they also make many commercial animation projects as well as conducting workshops in animation. He is a professor at the Faculty of Digital Arts at Metropolitan University in Belgrade, where he teaches courses in animation, photography and video production.
COMIC BOOK / MAGAZINE / FANZIN
SONJA GAŠPEROV, born in 1982 in Split. She graduated at the Split Academy of Arts. She works in comics and illustration, painting, story writing, performance and installations. So far, she has had fifteen solo and over ninety group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. She teaches as an assistant professor at the Split Academy of Arts and she is a member of HULU Split. She was awarded for the comic strip Addiction at the international comic festival Crtani Romani Šou, for the best prose text Cyber ZOO at the Prozak competition in 2007, and the award for the best story among visual artists Canary and Lion (Hrvatski zvukopois, Zagreb, Split, New York…) in 2020. She was included in the comic anthologies Women’s Comics in the Balkans (Fibra, 2010) and Balkan Comics: Women On The Fringe (Mark Batty, New York, 2011).
GUILLAUME CHAUCHAT is a french draftsman. Born in Paris in 1980 he lives and works in Strasbourg France. His drawings have led him so far to publish comics (2024/2042, Biscoto), and illustrated books (Albin Michel Jeunesse, Biscoto, La Partie), to create editorial art (Le Monde, Libé, Télérama, the 1, The New York Times, …) to work with various editorial projects (Pan, Le Tigre, Biscoto, Kiblind), to do commissions, friendship books which he often self publishes, exhibitions and sculptures. He also teaches at the Strasbourg Art Academy (HEAR), from which he graduated in 2009.
MATKO VLADANOVIĆ studied Croatian language and literature, and Philosophy at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. Since 2005. he has been writing about literature, comics, and science fiction online, and in print, wherever he could find an understanding editor. Some of his comics-focused writing has been collected in a book Izdevetane domaćice: kritički ogledi o hrvatskom stripu (Mentor, 2013.). For five years (2012. – 2017.) he has been an editor and a host of a series of comics-oriented panels at Booksa, literature club/bar in Zagreb, and has also dabbled in TV-script writing for a documentary series about comics (Strip u Hrvatskoj, UO Anima produkcija za HRT). Some time back he switched to IT, and is currently working with Bay Area startups on procurement, growth, data, AI, and similar buzzwords. He still reads comics and follows online gossip about comics authors. He’s trying to talk himself into writing more, but so far – he has not been successful.
MENTOR FOR CHILDREN’S JURY
ANA MARIJA MARINOV is a documentary and experimental filmmaker and producer, with degrees in journalism, political science, and experimental film from MET Film School Berlin. She has taken part in numerous workshops across Europe and is deeply engaged in working with children through film initiatives like KinoKino. What inspires her most is collaborating with passionate and creative people of all ages.