Animation First
Special Guests

Vito Adriaensens

Vito Adriaensens is a Belgian filmmaker, scholar, and professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He is a co-author of Screening Statues: Sculpture and Cinema, and the author of Velvet Curtains and Gilded Frames: The Art of Early European Cinema. Vito works mainly on celluloid, and his experimental films have screened internationally. His first feature is the Metamorphoses-inspired, 35mm anthology film Ovid, New York.

Kazembe Balagun

Kazembe Balagun is a cultural organizer and educator whose work connects history, social movements, and the arts. He has helped shape institutions such as the Brecht Forum and the Maysles Documentary Center, where he has developed public programs centered on collective leadership, historical memory, and community dialogue.

Signe Baumane

Signe Baumane is a Latvian-born, Brooklyn-based independent filmmaker, artist, writer, and animator with an interest in a wide variety of narrative themes, including sex, pregnancy, bodily functions, love, marriage, and the individual vs. society. Many of her films are told with a strong female point of view.

Signe is keen to experiment and is not afraid to be provocative or bring the most personal of issues to light. She believes that animation is a perfect medium to tell layered, complicated stories and one in which she can incorporate a wide variety of art forms.

While Signe’s 16 award-winning animated shorts have screened at over 400 film festivals, she is best known for her two animated feature films.Rocks in my Pockets (2014) covers a 100-year history of depression and suicide of women in her family, including herself. It premiered at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2014, went on to over 130 international festivals, opened theatrically in the U.S. through Zeitgeist Films, and continues to be screened in educational and mental health circles.

My Love Affair With Marriage (2022) fuses animation with music, theater, science, photography, three-dimensional sets and traditional hand-drawn animation to tell the story of a spirited young woman’s quest for Perfect Love and Lasting Marriage. It premiered at Tribeca Festival 2022, screened at 110 other festivals winning 25 awards, and was released theatrically in North America through 8 Above.

Signe is currently working on her third animated feature Karmic Knot (2028). Signe is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow in Film for New York Foundation for the Arts. She has a degree in Philosophy from Moscow State University.

Nicolas Becker

Nicolas Becker is a leading French Foley artist and sound designer, with credits on hundreds of acclaimed films, including Batman Begins, Gravity, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Ex Machina, and La Haine. In 2021, he won the Academy Award for Best Sound for the immersive, sensorial masterpiece Sound of Metal.

Becker has also expanded his artistry beyond cinema. He created an immersive sound installation for a Louis Vuitton runway show in collaboration with contemporary artist Philippe Parreno (with whom he also worked on an exhibition featuring musician Arca), and has collaborated with Patti Smith and Soundwalk Collective.

Recently, he has worked on new features with experimental filmmaker Momoko Seto (Dandelion’s Odyssey), Ugo Bienvenu (Arco), and Oscar-winning director Andrea Arnold.

Alex Boya

Alex Boya is a Montréal-based animator and filmmaker working primarily in hand-drawn 2D animation. His films include Focus and Turbine, produced with the National Film Board of Canada, and Bread Will Walk (2025), selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Alongside filmmaking, he develops independent research, production, and distribution structures around his work. His practice focuses on process-driven animation, repetition, and the relationship between image, sound, and timing, often developed through close collaboration with composers and sound designers.

Mike Enright

Mike Enright is a visual artist and animation filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. His body of work spans nearly three decades and has most recently been celebrated at the Woodstock Film Festival and at public video installations from South Korea to New Mexico.

Since 2003, Mr. Enright has taught the art of animation to students of various ages from children’s workshops, through higher education, to professionals returning to enhance their studies. He is currently a Full Time Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute’s Department of Digital Arts BFA 2D Animation program.

His admiration and respect for the French perspective on animation production began while curating international shorts programs for the Philadelphia Film Society throughout the 2000’s. In 2019, he spent a semester as a guest Professor in Angoulême, France at Ecole Européenne Supérieure de l’Image instructing animation workshops for first year students.

He is honored to co-curate the New Francophone Shorts program for the fourth consecutive year at L’Alliance Animation First Festival!

Alan Hankers

Alan Hankers is a composer, sound designer, and keyboardist with a passion for sonic storytelling and collaboration. His work spans concert halls, films, video games, commercials, and studio albums. Drawing from his background in classical, electronic music, and metal, Alan explores the intersections of composition, sound design, interactive technology, and performance.

His music has been featured at the Game Awards, international film festivals, and in campaigns for prominent brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Google. His work is regularly performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia by ensembles including the Loudon Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Chamber Orchestra, and others. Alan is currently composing original music and sound design for the video game Heroes Suck (Dawning Light Studios).

Alan is an Assistant Professor of Music at Vassar College and serves as a mentor for the Mentorship Program at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.

Emily Ann Hoffman

Emily Ann Hoffman Is an award-winning filmmaker and animator whose work explores sexuality, gender and intimacy through poignant comedy. Her films have screened at festivals such as Sundance, SXSW and Slamdance, and she has participated in labs, fellowships and markets with Warner Bros, Sundance Institute, Film at Lincoln Center, Gotham, and more. When she isn’t creating her own work, she’s supporting the next generation of auteurs as an Assistant Professor of Animation at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. As an animation director, her work has been featured on Netflix, HBO, and Hulu to name a few, and her work as a multidisciplinary fine artist and painter has been featured in international exhibits and publications like Architectural Digest and It’s Nice That. She holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and previously taught at Parsons, The New School and School of Visual Arts.

Emily Hubley

Emily Hubley has been making short, animated films for almost four decades. Her hand-drawn films explore personal memory and the turbulence of emotional life. Her feature, The Toe Tactic premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in 2009. Recent projects include shorts In the Eyes of the Worm (2024), made with Max Rosenthal, Faithy, hey (2019), Brainworm Billy (2018) also made with Max Rosenthal, and Look Where You’re Going! (2020), a 100’ digital mural displayed on Broadway in Manhattan. She has contributed animation to Vessel, Danny Says, Blue Vinyl, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and others. Ms. Hubley is currently developing a multi-screen installation project about her mother, filmmaker Faith Hubley, which includes six 23-minute loops combining 8400 self-portraits with varied examples of her art and writing: sketches and captions from journals, paintings and clips from her animated films.

Pat Irwin

Pat Irwin has spent over 4 decades pushing the boundaries of popular music with his soundtracks for some of the most recognized and popular shows in television including Dexter: Resurrection, Dexter: New Blood, Dexter: Original Sin, Nurse Jackie, Bored to Death and scores for animation including Rocko’s Modern Life, Pepper Ann, Class of 3000, and SpongeBob SquarePants. He has composed the music for many independent features including But I’m A Cheerleader, My New Gun, and Bam Bam and Celeste, His contributions to the SpongeBob soundtracks were awarded ASCAP Film & Television Awards in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

He was a founding member of two bands that were a part of the New York No Wave music scene, 8 Eyed Spy (with Lydia Lunch on vocals) and the Raybeats. He was a long time member of the B-52s and recorded and performed with the band from 1989 through 2007. He currently records and performs with SUSS.

He graduated from Grinnell College in 1977 with a degree in American Studies and in 2012 received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Grinnell. After graduation he received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and researched American expatriate Jazz activity in Europe. While living in Paris he attended composition workshops with the iconic composer John Cage.

Kat Mukai

Kat Mukai is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work spans 2D and 3D animation, film, and illustration for print. Kat blends a traditional understanding of drawing and painting with a suite of digital tools that include ZBrush and Blender to create imagery around literary genres and the natural world. A passionate storyteller, Kat’s work often leans on narrative techniques to tell stories about the internal self at odds with a wider, often wilder, world. She is pleased to be teaching at her alma mater, Pratt Institute.   

Sébastien Onomo

Sébastien Onomo is a French producer and distributor who has worked in film and audiovisual media for over ten years.

To date, he has produced numerous television films, including Bois d’Ébène, Léon Blum, Hated and Loved, Rudy Gobert, African Empires (a documentary series), La Dernière Autopsie du Docteur Paul, and Spike Lee, The Last King of Brooklyn.

He has also produced Le Gang des Antillais, Funan, Les Âmes Perdues, La Forêt de Mademoiselle Tang, La Sirène, Fanon, and Allah n’est pas obligé. He also co-produced Augure and Au cœur des Ténèbres.

Alongside his work as a producer, he heads the distribution company Pathé Touch Afrique (formerly Pathé BC Afrique).

In 2023, he was elected Vice President of the Syndicat des Producteurs Indépendants (SPI) and President of its Animation division. That same year, he received the Animation Trophy from Le Film Français during the 2023 Annecy Festival.

For many years, he has shared his expertise with various university programs (Paris 3, Paris 7) and major film schools such as INA, La Fémis, and Les Gobelins, and he is the founder of the Panafrican Animation Workshop.

Samuel Ribeyron

Samuel Ribeyron is a children’s book author and illustrator, published by several French publishing houses.

He creates his images using cut-paper techniques, notably in the picture book It’s Not Very Complicated, available in the United States through Reycraft, as well as in the graphic novel Puisette and Fragile.

Alongside his publishing work, he is also an art director and visual author for animated films.

He began his animation career in stop-motion on the French–British series Hilltop Hospital. Since then, he has collaborated with Folimage Studios on numerous productions (The Four Seasons of Léon / 4 × 26 min, Operation Christmas / 26 min). More recently, he designed and supervised the creation of the sets for Antoine Lanciaux’s cut-paper animated feature The Songbirds’ Secret.

Momoko Seto

Seto was born in Tokyo, Japan. She moved to France to study art at the École supérieure des beaux-arts in Marseille and later at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains. She works as a director at CNRS (The French National Center for Scientific Research), where she makes scientific films in collaboration with researchers in the humanities and social sciences. In 2021, she received the CNRS Cristal, the highest distinction for a scientific filmmaker. In addition, she creates personal works and experimental pieces, where she explores different animation techniques such as VR, projection mapping, and installations.

The short films in her PLANET series have been showcased at numerous festivals and art events worldwide. PLANET Σ received the Audi Short Film Award at the Berlinale Shorts in 2015—an award recognizing works with a “strong artistic signature”— and is part of the prestigious Mori Art Museum collection in Tokyo. PLANET A is included in the Cinémathèque Française collection. In 2017, her virtual reality film, PLANET∞, was added to the mk2 Films catalog. Seto has also directed several films, some shot in Japan, which have been broadcast on France TV.

Her new fiction film, Dandelion’s Odyssey premiered at the Critic’s Week at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded by Prix FIPRESCI and it went on to win the Prix Paul Grimault at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Dandelion’s Odyssey will be released nationwide in France on March 11, 2026.

Leah Shore

Leah Shore is a multimedia filmmaker, artist and musician whose work fuses dark humor, bold visuals, and biting social commentary. Known for their surreal storytelling and punk aesthetic, Shore’s films have screened at SXSW, Sundance, Slamdance, and festivals worldwide. Their work spans live action, animation, and experimental hybrids that explore identity, sexuality, science and the absurdities of modern culture. Unapologetically provocative and visually electric, Shore creates art that shocks, seduces, and sticks.

Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (Clyde Henry Productions) are award-winning writers, directors and animators. Their first film, Madame Tutli-Putli (NFB), was recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short (2007).

Lavis and Szczerbowski went on to adapt Maurice Sendak’s Higglety Pigglety Pop! (NFB, Warner Brothers) and direct Meryl Streep in the film. In 2016, the duo were recognized with a nomination for Best Art Direction at the Canadian Screen Awards for their work on Guy Maddin’s feature The Forbidden Room. In 2017, 20 years of artistic creation was celebrated with retrospectives at the Cinémathèque Québécoise (Montreal) and the Annecy International Animation Festival in France. Then, in 2019, they created the VR film Gymnasia (Felix & Paul, NFB), a unique blend of virtual reality and stop-motion animation, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win numerous awards, including a Canadian Screen Award for Best Immersive Experience.

Most recently, they collaborated with Montreal’s Compulsion Games and X-Box to direct a short stop-motion introduction to the game South of Midnight.

Sylwia Szkiłądź

Sylwia Szkiłądź is a director of short animated films. She was born in 1987 in Podlaskie (in Poland), which she left at the age of 8 with her parents to live in Brussels. However, Podlaskie was and remains one of her most important artistic inspirations. Her film productions include: Limaçon et caricoles (2012) co-directed with Nim Gamboa, La Soupe aux fraises (2014) and Le Renard minuscule (2015) co-directed with Aline Quertain. She works freelance on various forms of animation: video clips co-directed with Jessica Poon including The Skeleton Band and The Midnight Secret Socks Party, as well as animations created with Marion Sellenet for the series Les Chroniques végétales. She shares her knowledge and experience of animation with children and adults by organizing workshops in community centers and schools. She currently lives and works in Belgium, France and Poland.

Jonathan Zalben

Chris Wedge

Chris Wedge was around for the dawn of computer animation in movies. He animated on Disney’s “TRON” (1982). Later he co-founded Blue Sky Studios, where he directed animation on “Joe’s Apartment” for MTV, made an Oscar® winning short film called “Bunny”, directed “Ice Age” (2002), “Robots” (2005) “Epic” (2013) for 20th Century Fox, and executive produced nearly every one of the 13 films that Blue Sky produced in its 34 year lifetime. He also directed the live-action hybrid movie “Monster Trucks” (2017) for Paramount. 

Currently he is writing and developing original projects and embracing life as a grandparent.