The Festival
Panel of Judges
Niccolò Gioia
Italy
Niccolò Gioia is a director and animator who made his debut on YouTube, gaining millions of views thanks to stop-motion animations published on his Lumaken Studio channel. His studies, which include Cinema Engineering and the Aardman Academy, led him to the role of Head of Animation at the Turin-based Robin Studio and Animation Supervisor on several short films by the Rome-based Fantasmagorie Studio. Starting in 2026, following a long-term collaboration as a stop-motion animator on various short films, he became a member of COLA Animation.
John Musker
EUA
John Musker is a veteran of the Walt Disney Animation Studio where he was an animator, writer, director, and producer. John grew up in Chicago, Illinois as part of a large Irish Catholic family. He followed up his English Literature studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, with two years at CalArts as part of the new Character Animation Program in the mid-Seventies, where he learned not only from Disney and Chouinard veterans like Elmer Plummer, Bill Moore, and Ken O’Connor, but also his fellow classmates there, many who have gone on to direct distinguished films: folks like Brad Bird, Henry Selick, John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Chris Buck. At Disney he was mentored by Eric Larson, the veteran animator and one of Disney’s fabled “Nine Old Men,” who brought Figaro the cat to life in Pinocchio, among many other characters in his distinguished career.
John became an animator on The Fox and the Hound (1981), and later joined Ron Clements to direct The Great Mouse Detective (1986) alongside Disney veterans Burny Mattinson and Dave Michener. Ron and John paired up to write and direct The Little Mermaid (1989) which John co-produced with Howard Ashman. Ron and John also wrote and directed a number of subsequent animated features including Aladdin (1992) Hercules (1997) Treasure Planet ( 2002) and The Princess and the Frog ( 2009.) John’s most recent project was Moana ( 2016) which he once again directed with Ron Clements, along with co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams.
John retired from Disney Feature Animation in the spring of 2018, and in spring of 2023 completed animating by hand his own short film, “I’m Hip” which was selected to be screened at Annecy in summer 2023, one of 36 films picked from more than 3200 submissions. It has also begun a round of screenings at festivals around the world including the Animasyros festival in Greece in late September 2023, the BIAF festival in Seoul, Korea, where it won a Diversity award, and the Mill Valley Festival in California. John was thrilled that “I’m Hip” was one of the 15 films “short-listed” for selection in this year’s Oscars.
John resides in La Can?ada, California, with his wife Gale, a former researcher at Disney, not far from two of his grown children: son Jackson and daughter Julia and her husband Michael. Son Patrick and wife Andrea and their three daughters now live in Columbus, Ohio. John loves to visit his granddaughters Lucy (7), Gwen (5) and Marigold (2) there in his role as “Boompah,” and delights when they come to visit him and Gale in California.
Guilherme Bonini
Brasil
Professional film director, screenwriter and producer. His academic background is a master's degree in cinematographic narrative / image and sound from the Federal University of São Carlos – UFSCAR.
He works between cinema, video art and photography. As a result of these cultural projects in creating and producing independent projects, he created Bonini Filmes in 2011. Always with the objective of telling stories, its mission is to provoke sensations through image, seeking aesthetic and narrative innovation, in addition to the pleasure of experimentation.
With intense production since 2012, he had several works presented in Brazil and Europe.
Mattew Watkins
England
Internationally acclaimed artist, animator, and storyteller, born in England, raised in Canada and living in Italy.
An advocate for digital art, Watkins also participates in workshops, talks, and events that aim to educate and inspire others about digital opportunity and the importance of creativity.
Ulisses Dias
Portugal
Director of the Bang Awards Festival and Bang Venue. He brings his experience as an actor and film producer and of musical events to the management of "SLINGSHOT - Design e Produções Multimédia, Lda." and "NAU Identidade - Comunicação e Promoção Turística, Lda.".
