Animation Made for Young Audiences 7+

Kelly Gallagher is an experimental filmmaker, animator, and Associate Professor of Film at Syracuse University. She makes colorful cut-out animations, experimental films, documentaries, and found footage essays that explore political histories of resistance and personal stories of resilience.

She has received support for her work from Creative Capital, New York State Council on the Arts, the Wexner, Doc Society, LEF Moving Image Fund, Oscilloscope Films, and Orphans Film Symposium’s Helen Hill Award.

Her handcrafted films and commissioned animations have screened at venues including: the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and Ann Arbor Film Festival. Her commissioned animations have screened on Netflix, Criterion Channel, and PBS. She’s presented solo programs of her work at institutions including: SFMOMA, Close-Up Cinema London, Balkanima European Animation Film Festival, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Wide Open Experimental Film Festival, and MUTA Audiovisual Appropriation International Festival, among others.

Her films are distributed by Canyon Cinema. Kelly enthusiastically organizes and facilitates fun and inclusive film workshops and camps for communities of all ages, every time she gets the chance.

Director of animated films. Born in Poland, she has lived in Berlin for 20 years. She is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and of Film Animation at the Cinematography Department of the Lodz Film School, where she also completed her Ph.D. and was promoted to doctor habilitated in the of Fine Arts. She specializes in animation in clay. She has made 18 films, including Jam Session (2005), winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. She is currently a lecturer at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. As a producer, she produced films with her own company Claytraces until 2023. In 2024, she founded a production company with another animation director ‘Wait a Second Film’ in Berlin. Her latest film is JOKO, inspired by a short novel by Roland Topor. It is a Polish-German-Czech co-production.

Ukrainian film director and screenwriter. She is studying Film and Television Directing at the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts.

She has completed internships at several film production companies, gaining hands-on experience in film production

Born in Tokyo. His graduate film My Little Goat (2018) from Tokyo University of the Arts attracted international attention, winning awards across Asia and Europe. He received the Young Guns Award, an international prize recognizing creators under 30.

In 2021, he made his TV directorial debut with PUI PUI Molcar, which brought him widespread acclaim. That same year, he founded the stop-motion animation studio TORUKU within WIT STUDIO. In 2025, he directed the Netflix series My Melody & Kuromi.

Lena von Döhren, born in Berlin in 1981, grew up with three brothers. After graduating from high school, she traveled around the world for two years and then studied Audiovisual Communication in Amsterdam, as well as Animation at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.

Her graduation film The Little Bird and the Leaf premiered at the Berlinale in 2012, followed by three subsequent films featuring the Little Bird, and most recently the film Tümpel (co-directed with Eva Rust) in 2023.

With her imaginative and poetic films for children, she also captivates adults and has received more than 30 awards worldwide, including the Golden Sparrow Award.

Born and raised in Taiwan, Muling Tzai later completed high school in eSwatini and earned her undergraduate degree in Florida.

Storytelling with and for people has become her greatest passion during these past years of moving around. She often draws inspiration from conversations, as well as from observing both the heavy and light aspects of human experience. Her sketchbooks are filled with houses, trees, and furniture.

In her free time, you can find her watching movies, drinking milk, and begging friends to play Bridge with her.

As an artist, Olivia Lin finds inspiration in experimenting with different mediums to push their storytelling capabilities as much as possible.

She grew up in New Jersey but a lot of her vivid childhood memories are from summers spent visiting family in China. While visiting, she studied traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy with her grandfather and it inspired a lot of the visual language behind her work.

After she graduates, she’d love to develop a short film painted on Xuan paper.

Gertrūda Nemčauskaitė is a young and successful 2D and stop-motion animator who graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2020 and is now working on several projects, based both in Lithuania and abroad.

Backstreet Birds is her first written and directed short.

Sophie Olga de Jong
As an animation artist and director Sophie Olga de Jong has made several commissioned animations for Dutch television programs and Museums. She worked as an animator on the movies Where is Anne Frank, and They Shot the Piano Player.

Together with Sytske Kok, Sophie developed the short animated film Cycle (2018). In 2022 Sophie received a nomination for the Victoriefonds Cultuurprijs, and therefore she got the opportunity to exhibit her animations in Het Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar.

Sytske Kok
As a writer-director Sytske Kok made several award-winning live action (short) films including The Chinese Wall (2002) winner of the press and jury prize at Clermont-Ferrand. With Sophie Olga de Jong she wrote and co-directed the short animation Cycle (2018).

Sytske is co-founder and teacher of screenwriting at the Scenariovakschool in Amsterdam.

Naira Carneiro and Carlon Hardt are two multidisciplinary artists who joined their talents to co-direct The Magic Garden. Naira is an actress, dancer, musician, and director with a long career at Cia Os Buriti, where she has been performing since the age of 6. Carlon is a director, animator, and art director, with a trajectory marked by projects in cinema, music, and visual arts. Both artists have showcased their work throughout Brazil and in several other countries, bringing with them experiences and insights that serve as the seeds nurturing this heartfelt short film.

Andrea Szelesová is a Slovak director and animator. At VOŠ Václava Hollara she animated her first film Malady, later continuing her studies at FAMU, where she created films Mon Ami, anidoc 19 20 18, or the stop-motion Afternoon Tea. She graduated with the film Sisters, which premiered at Annecy 2021 and took part in more than 60 festivals in 30 countries (BIAF, Clermont ISFF, OIAF), receiving 11 international awards including Best Slovak Animated Short at Fest Anča. As an animator she worked on M. Pavlátová’s feature film My Sunny Maad and TV series Čtyřlístek and Rychlé šípy (studio Alkay).