The juries of ANIMASYROS powered by PPC 2024 are composed of esteemed professionals from the fields of cinema and animation, including animators, directors, producers, festival organizers and artistic directors from around the world.

International & Hellenic Competition Section

• Manos Gerogiannis & Yannis Zoumakis (GR) - animators, founders of Odd Bleat animation studio

Odd Bleat is an award-winning animation and motion design studio Odd Bleat founded in 2015 by Yannis Zoumakis and Manos Gerogiannis. Odd Bleat has undertaken commercial projects for Dior, Ebay, Google, Revolut, Dow Jones as well as many cultural projects through their long-term collaboration with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. Working with clients from Greece, England, Canada, Lebanon, New Zealand, America, Singapore, Odd Bleat writes, designs and creates mainly promotional videos, many of which have been distinguished in competitions such as the Greek Visual Communication Design Awards (EBGE), Ermis Awards, Muse Awards and Vega Digital Awards. Moreover they have created two short films which have travelled and won several awards at festivals in London, Los Angeles and New York.

• João Gonzalez (PT) – director, animator, illustrator & musician

João Gonzalez (1996) is a Portuguese film director, animator, illustrator and a musician with classical training in piano. He did a Masters at the Royal College Art (UK), after finishing his BA at ESMAD (PT). In these institutions he made 2 award winning films, “Nestor” and “The Voyager”. In 2022 he premiered his third film “Ice Merchants” at Festival de Cannes, winning the Prize for Best Short film in competition from the Semaine de La Critique jury, which later would became the first ever Portuguese film to be nominated for an Oscar and the second to win an Annie Award. He has a big interest in combining his musical background with his practice in authorial animation, always taking the role of composer and sometimes instrumentalist in the films he directs, occasionally setting them to a live performance.

• Rita Mbanga (ZA) – producer

Rita Mbanga has over 20 years of experience working in animated and live-action feature films, commercials, short films, and TV series. She has been part of the production team on the popular “Jungle Beat” animated brand since the inception of the brand in 2004 - across all eight seasons and both feature films - the first of which was in the feature film competition in Annecy and released by Netflix. The “Jungle Beat” Youtube channel has over 11.6 million subscribers. Rita has recently produced the “Young David” animated series which has been released by Angel Studios and Minno. She has also been a mentor in the “Women in Animation” mentorship program and was a member of the Jury at the Annecy Film Festival in 2022 and the El Ojo Cojo Film Festival in 2022 and 2023.

Student - TV & Commissioned Films

• Eleni Androutsopoulou (GR) - Head of the Greek Department of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF)

Eleni Androutsopoulou is Programmer, Head of the Greek Department of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) and Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) while she also coordinates the implementation of the EU programmes that the Festival undertakes. She has been with TIFF since 2005 (since 2010 Head of the Greek Program) and as part of her current role she overviews all films which are eligible for the Greek programs of TIFF and TDF, liaising with the local film community and supporting the film selection process. Eleni holds a B.A. in Business Management from University of Patras and an M.A. in Cultural Policy, Management and Communication from Panteion University.

• Olivier Catherin (FR) – producer

Olivier Catherin is an ethnologist by training. He was a board member and employee of the French Animation Film Association (AFCA), where he was responsible for the Resource Centre and created the International Animation Film Day Celebration. In 2008 he created the production company "Les Trois Ours". He produced, among more than 40 projects, including “Kiki of Montparnasse” which won a César for best short animation film. He is one of the co-founders and administrators of the European Animation Awards (Emile Awards). Today he is a freelance producer on international co-production projects, producing for instance “Steakhouse” (Jury Prize at Annecy), “Granny’s Sexual Life” (Best short European Films Awards, César for best short animation film) or “Electra” (best short film at Toronto International Film Festival), consultant for various entities as CITIA, CEE Animation, he was in charge of Annecy 2020’s African focus or a study of the animation eco-system in Nigeria for the French Development Agency. He’s also teaching animation production and film history. He has conducted project development and pitching workshops in Georgia for the past 10 years, and also in Ecuador, Venezuela, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Austria.

• Amit Gicelter (IL) – producer, founder of The Hive Studio

Amit Russell Gicelter is an Academy Award nominated producer, a content creator, and the founder and CEO of The Hive Studio, a leading animation studio in Israel. He specializes in international co-productions. With 20 years of experience, Amit has produced multiple award-winning short films, including the Oscar nominee “Letter to a Pig” and the shortlisted Black Slide, as well as series for major broadcasters and high-end commercial content, employing various animation and live-action techniques.

K.ID.S.

• Markéta Pášmová (CZ) - Artistic Director of the Zlín Film Festival

Markéta Pášmová started working at the Zlín Film Festival in 1999 and become its artistic director in 2013. She focusses on European cinema for young audiences and is active in educational programmes for children and youth. She is a member of the board of directors of the FILM TALENT ZLÍN foundation, which supports young talented filmmakers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Markéta Pášmová is also the head of Zlín Industry Days – a programme for film professionals.

• Britt Raes (BE) – director, illustrator & screenwriter

Britt is a Belgian director, illustrator and scriptwriter. She creates cute characters and dark stories, for kids and adults. Her debut short film “Catherine” (2016) and second short “Luce and the Rock” (2022) travelled to over 200 festivals each, and together collected more than 80 prizes at Berlinale, Cinequest, Ottawa, Cinanima, Japan Prize, Indie Lisboa etc. The films are included in several educational folders and shown on international television and theatres.  Britt is currently writing a series for kids and developing a short for adults. She likes (dark) chocolate, hugs, sketching animals at the zoo. When travelling, she collects rocks to paint eyes on. If she’s reincarnated, she hopes to come back as a cat named Fluffy.

• Anna Routsi (GR) – Lawyer, Special Scientist at the Greek Ombudsman & Cultural Editor

Anna Routsi is a lawyer, a cultural manager and a columnist. She studied Law in Athens and Hannover and has a master degree on Culture and Media Management from Berlin Freie Universitaet. She has worked for the publicity of renowned cultural organisations, such as Athens and Epidaurus Festival. She collaborated for the programme planning and she was the head of the national and international publicityof Athens World Book Capital UNESCO 2018. She is a founding member of UNESCO’s World Book Capital Network and PEN Greece, she writes for cultural magazines, such as monopoli.gr and ecogreennet.gr and she is the chief editor for documentary programmes in cinema and television. Since 2003 she is a senior investigator in the Children’s Rights Department, she coordinates the Youth Advisory Council of the Greek Ombudsman.

AnimaPride

• Aimé Besson (FR) – Audiovisual Attaché at the French Institute of Greece

After studying political science and cinema, Aimé Besson worked for several years in mainland France, overseas (Martinique) and in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico) in the field of cultural policies and, in particular, in the cinema and audiovisual sectors. Since September 2023, he is audiovisual attaché at the French Institute in Greece and, as such, coordinate the Francophone Film Festival of Greece.

• Kate Jessop (UK) – director, animator

Kate Jessop is regarded as a pioneer of Queer Animation, creating ground breaking films showcasing the queer perspective through animation, such as Little Elephant and Queer Heroes. She has enjoyed two international retrospectives on her work in USA (2019) and Czech Republic (2021) and was written about in the first ever book on Queer Animation On LGBT2S Animation (Canada 2020). She has spoken at numerous conferences on the subject including Goldsmiths, RCA and Queering Animation. Her multi award winning series “Tales From Pussy Willow” was picked up for distribution by REVRY, the first global queer streaming service and has won a multitude of awards. She was selected both as writer-director and with the series for the 2019 Berlinale Talent Lab. She is also the director of the Brighton International Animation Festival which showcases the annual Queer as F++k programme.

• Υorgos Kapoutzidis (GR) – Screenwriter, Actor

Born in Serres (1972) he studied law in Thessaloniki and immediately afterwards at the Drama School of Athens. As a screenwriter and actor he has written and starred in four successful Greek television series, while for the theatre he has adapted three musicals and written two of his own plays. He is currently in rehearsal for his third personal play which will be performed at the National Theatre. As a entertainer he has presented television shows and programmes. In past few years, as an identified and active gay man, he e vigorously participated in public debates on LGBTQ rights, presented Athens Pride in 2022 and 2023 and Thessaloniki Europride in 2024, and fought strong for the Greek Parliament to pass the Marriage Equality Law in February 2024.