Festival Guests

Aaron MacGregor

Now aged 13, rising star Aaron MacGregor voices the character of Michael in Kensuke's Kingdom and has also already starred in Netflix series SuperPupZ, in animated feature Puffin Rock and the New Friends and in hit historical drama series Outlander.

Alex Teoh

Alex Teoh is a Senior Animator at Industrial Light & Magic, known for his work on Lost Ollie, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Aladdin, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Avengers: Endgame, Age of Ultron, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Amy Gledhill

Amy is a comedian, actor, writer and director from Hull, and one half of double Edinburgh nominated duo The Delightful Sausage.

Andrew Lord

Andrew is co-founder and managing director of Flipbook Studio, a multidisciplinary production company based in Manchester city centre. Andrew is currently involved in the development of a number of animated series, including Esme Wonderwig, a co-production with Adastra Creative.

Andrew Schlussel

Andrew is Senior Director, Training and Development at DNEG Animation. Prior roles include leading training at Netflix Animation, Framestore and MPC, and educational roles at DreamWorks Animation and Pixar.

Andy Burns

Andy Burns works as a Director at MacKinnon & Saunders. Andy’s animation and directing career spans a BAFTA win for Bob the Builder as well as a host of series and specials including, Timmy Time, Toby’s Travelling Circus, Twirlywoos and Moon & Me. Andy’s passion for Mixmups stems in part from his wonderfully vibrant and autistic son, Tom.

Aneta Ozorek

Aneta Ozorek is an Artistic Director of Kaboom Animation Festival, which takes place in the Netherlands from 5th - 14th April 2024.

Anttu Harlin

Anttu Harlin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gigglebug Entertainment, a leading creator and producer of original kids’ content in the Nordics which is focused on bringing smiles to audiences worldwide.

Aubrey Clarke

Aubrey is a Commissioning Executive in the BBC Children’s 7+ Commissioning team with a remit that covers Live Action scripted drama and animation. He is the executive producer on popular brands such as The Next Step, Home Sweet Rome, The Deep, Theodosia, Scream Street, Odd Squad, Spooky Files plus upcoming projects Digi Girl and Gangnam Project.

Becky Perryman

Becky Perryman is a Senior Producer at Strange Beast, working across production and talent development. Before moving to Strange Beast, she worked for sister studio PASSION PICTURES for 6 years.

Chris Bowden

Chris is Producer for the TV series Mixmups, and part of the team at world renowned animation studio, MacKinnon & Saunders. He has produced over 500 episodes of children’s TV including Raa Raa the Noisy Lion, Postman Pat SDS, The Twirlywoos and Moon & Me.

Christopher White

Christopher White is a composer who creates scores for feature films, television drama and documentary. Among Christopher’s most recent work is the score for Hungarian feature animation White Plastic Sky, which screens in competition at MAF 2023.

Claire Jennings

Claire Jennings is a multi-award winning animation producer whose list of feature film credits include Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and the American feature film Coraline.

Courtney Arumugam

Based in London, Courtney Arumugam is responsible for the creative development of LEGO content and serves as Executive Producer, as part of the company’s hugely successful global slate of short-form, long-form and feature-length productions.

David Holt

David Holt is one of the UK's foremost animation voice talents, having worked on over 100 series and countless films for all the major studios in the UK and beyond, as well as commercials, audio dramas, books, computer games and more.

David Park

David Park is Head of Production of PASSION Animation, a division of PASSION PICTURES. Overseeing all aspects of creative development, David is leading the studio’s move into Long Form animation working with streaming and studio partners on original features and series.

Emily Horgan

Emily is an independent media consultant and former Disney exec. She has an extensive background in managing the intersection of content distribution and consumer products for household franchises including Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Princess, and Mickey Mouse.

Emma Turner

Emma is the Head of Film, Animation and Future Skills at ScreenSkills. She sets the overall strategic direction for the Film Skills Fund. She works with industry to identify skills gaps and shortages, funding appropriate training across the UK to ensure that professionals advance their careers.

Frank Cottrell Boyce

Frank Cottrell-Boyce is a successful British screenwriter and Children's novelist, with film credits including 'Welcome to Sarajevo', 'Hilary and Jackie' and '24 Hour Party People'. He recently adapted Michael Murpurgo's bestselling novel Kensuke's Kingdom for the big screen.

Fumi Kitahara

Fumi is an independent PR and awards consultant who has worked in the animation space for over 30 years. As a seasoned consultant, Fumi contributed to the publicity and awards campaigns for the Oscar®-winning animated film, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, as well as many Oscar®-nominated films such as Coraline and How to Train Your Dragon.

Gary Thomas

Gary is Director at Animate Projects, which was established in 2007 and joined Arts Council England's National Portfolio in April 2023. Gary also co-founded Animation Alliance UK, now with over 400 members.

Glen Southern

Glen runs SouthernGFX, a small Cheshire based studio specialising in character and creature design and the SouthernGFX Youtube channel helping artists create in new and innovative ways.

Hameed Adigun

Hameed is the Director of the award-winning animation company Ronu Creative. His journey has traversed the rich landscapes of award-winning animated short films, impactful campaigns, and explorations into the heritage of African history through a popular YouTube channel.

Hamid Ibrahim

Hamid Ibrahim is Co-Founder and Creative Director at Kugali Media, which became the first African company to close a deal with Disney Animation Studios, with its original series Iwaju.

Helen Brunsdon

Helen has worked extensively across the animation industry as a consultant, producer and executive, working with some of the most creative names in animation including Aardman, CBBC and Disney. She also works as an animation advisor, programmer, events producer and jury member, and has been Director of the British Animation Awards since 2018.

Isabelle Croissant

Isabelle has been a member of MAF's selection committee since 2017. Outside of MAF she is part of the Artist Development team at HOME, Manchester’s independent cinema and arts venue, with a particular focus on film and digital.

J.P. Vine

J.P. Vine’s directorial debut was Ron’s Gone Wrong at London’s Locksmith Animation. Before that he was at Pixar where his storyboarding work was featured in the critically acclaimed Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur. He began his career as a set dresser and animator at Aardman Animation. He’s currently developing new projects at Locksmith.

Jack Leigh

Jack is the owner and Creative Director of Eight Engines. The company produces a vast array of video projects, from TV shows with the BBC to collaborations with marketing and PR agencies like Tangerine, Refresh, and Weber Shandwick, working with the likes of Specsavers, IBM, Tinder, Transport for Greater Manchester, Science in Sport, among others.

Jez Hall

Jez has worked in the animation industry as a director and storyboard artist for 33 years. He is currently Series Director at Fourth Wall Animation.

Jo Allen

Jo is a Commissioning Executive for CBBC, focussing on animation. Jo’s role is to assess submissions, to work across animation development, and as Executive Producer on series such as Dennis and Gnasher, Ninja Express, Boy,Girl,Dog,Cat,Mouse,Cheese and the forthcoming series of animated specials ‘Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures’.

Jo Hepworth

Joanna has been working in the industry for 16 years, initially as a freelance 2D animator, she has now been working for several years as a director at AProductions in Bristol.

Jon Rennie

Jon Rennie is Managing Director of Cloth Cat, an award-winning animation and games company specialising in the children's market. Projects include the Emmy-nominated Luo Bao Bei, Shane the Chef, The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, Olobob Top, Ethel & Ernest, Boj, Grandpa in my Pocket and Disney's Tales of Friendship with Winnie the Pooh.

Jovan de Melo

Jovan de Melo is an Art Director at Blue Zoo Animation Studios. In 2019, Jovan moved to the UK from Brazil to join Blue Zoo. Working on projects such as “It’s Pony”, “Pip and Posy”, “Supertato”, “Numberblocks”, “Colourblocks” and others.

Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones

Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones is a senior creative executive at Walt Disney Animation Studios, known for his work on ENCANTO (2021) and most recently his role as a producer on WISH (2023).

Julie Lockhart

Julie Lockhart is the Co-Founder and President of Production of Locksmith Animation. One of the film industry’s most experienced animation producers, her work has received three Academy Award© nominations including Best Animated Film in 2013 and 2015.

Kambole Campbell

Kambole Campbell is a freelance critic based in London. His writing – on live-action and animated film, video games and comics, has appeared in Vulture, BBC Culture, Empire, i-D, Sight & Sound and Little White Lies, and others.

Karen Newell

Karen is Resident Play Lead and Brand Guardian for Mixmups. Karen is a play consultant, former child responses researcher for Ragdoll Productions, (Teletubbies), a specialist in disabled children’s access to play and a parent of a son with a visual impairment. Karen has a master’s degree in Early Childhood, and she is the co-founder of Toy Like Me.

Kata Gugić

Kata Gugić is based in Zagreb where she works as a director and animator and is president of ASIFA Croatia.

Kate O’Connor

Kate is a senior consultant in the Screen Industries, working with a wide range of private and public-sector clients in the UK and Internationally. In synergy with running her consultancy practice, Kate is the Executive Chair of Animation UK, part of the UK Screen Alliance, the trade body for VFX, post-production and film studios.

Kenneth Anderson

Kenneth is a versatile freelance designer specialising in the creation of characters and character-driven illustrations for animation, gaming, and traditional publishing. With a notable client portfolio including BBC, Nick Jr, Sesame Workshop and Brown Bag Films, Kenneth has contributed to an array of exciting projects, spanning from Butterbeans Cafe and Karmas World to Disney Lorcana.

Kirk Hendry

Kirk directed the feature-length film of Michael Morpurgo's award-winning book Kensuke's Kingdom, with co-director Neil Boyle.

Lauren Auty

Lauren is a professional storyboard artist at BlueZoo Animation. Most recently she was a storyboard artist on Magic Light’s second series of Pip & Posy. She has also storyboarded on various productions for Cartoonito, Nickelodeon and CBeebies.

Liz Chan

Liz Chan is the Commissioning Executive looking after the BBC Children’s & Education nationwide Animation development programme BBC Ignite.

Lucy Murphy

Lucy is Director of Kids Content for Sky in the UK and ROI. She is responsible for Sky’s Kids content across all platforms which includes 8 live partner channels, a library of over 10,000 On Demand episodes and the new Sky Kids channel which launched in 2023 housing brand new Originals and franchise favourites.

Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor is co MD of A Productions, the award winning, Bristol based studio (now part of the Cyber Group.)

Martin Pope

Martin Pope is a joint CEO and co-founder of Magic Light Pictures, one of the UK’s leading entertainment companies which makes high-quality and imaginative content for audiences, families and children worldwide.

Matthew Bradley

Matthew began his animation career as a designer and has been working for the Northern Ireland-based ALT Animation as a Development Producer since 2021. In 2023, it was announced that his comedy series ‘Captain Onion’s Buoyant Academy For Wayward Youth’ was one of the successful series to be greenlit through BBC Children’s Ignite initiative.

Michael Rose

Michael Rose is the joint CEO and co-founder of Magic Light Pictures, one of the UK’s leading entertainment companies which makes high-quality and imaginative content for audiences, families and children worldwide.

Michael Smith

Michael is the course leader of the BA(hons) Animation and supervisor on the MA Animation course at Leeds Arts University. Michael’s research interest is focussed on pedagogy, animation education and industry. He has recently had a book chapter published titled, The Industrialisation of Animation Education.

Mohamed Ghazala

Mohamed Ghazala is an Egyptian associate professor of animation and the chair of the Cinematic Arts School at Effat University, Saudi Arabia. He also serves as Vice President of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA.

ND Stevenson

ND Stevenson is the award-winning, bestselling author and illustrator of Nimona, as well as a co-producer of the film adaptation coming to Netflix this summer.

Neil Boyle

Neil is co-director of the feature film 'Kensuke's Kingdom' Kirk Hendry, for Sarah Radclyffe Productions and Lupus Films.

Orion Ross

Orion Ross is Vice President, International Animation at Disney Branded Television. His team develop and produce animated series including the Disney+ Originals Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life, Dragon Striker and Magicampers, plus original children's series Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, 101 Dalmation Street and the BAFTA-winning Disney XDFC shorts program.

Ornela Čop

Ornela has been Festival Coordinator at Animafest Zagreb since 2017. Since 2020, she has assisted in coordinating the Animation Festival Network, connecting five leading animation festivals from Central and Eastern Europe.

Pinar Oruc

Dr Pinar Oruc is a Lecturer in Commercial Law at the University of Manchester. Pinar's area is intellectual property law, and she is the co-director for Manchester Centre for Law and Business.

Rebecca Crane

Rebecca is an author, illustrator and visual development artist, specialising in dynamic character designs for books and animation. She has illustrated a number of popular stories enjoyed by readers around the world with publishers such as Flying Eye Books, Walker, Penguin Randomhouse and others.

Sam Morrison

Sam spent a decade as an animation director with Nexus Productions and Aardman Animations before turning to screenwriting full-time, largely for young audiences. After writing fifty episodes of Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom he moved on to Peppa Pig, Shaun the Sheep, Hey Duggee and numerous others.

Sam Shaw

Sam is a Bristol based director, animation generalist and duck fan currently working at Sun & Moon Studios. From art direction to storyboarding, Sam has helped out in pretty much every stage in a production pipeline for clients including, CBeebies, Games Workshop, Woodland Trust, Doctor Who and Louis Armstrong.

Sarah Legg-Barrett

After 17 years at the BBC, Sarah founded Neon Soul Media in 2021, offering consultancy specialising in IP development across preschool children’s animation and script editing services, alongside developing IP of her own.

Sarah Muller

Currently Senior Head of Commissioning 7+ at BBC Children’s and Education

Shelley Page

Shelley Page is Artist Liaison at Locksmith Animation, which is currently in production on 'That Christmas' (2024). She is constantly seeking out amazing artists for the studio's feature animation projects.

Siqi Song

Siqi Song is an Oscar and Annie-nominated Director. She was the recipient of the Film Independent Directing Fellow in 2018 and BAFTA Newcomer in 2019 and her films have been screened at Sundance, SXSW, Annecy, Ottawa and more.

Steve Henderson

Steve is the Director of Manchester Animation Festival and a founding member of the team. He is also the editor and co-owner of skwigly.com, the UK’s biggest online animation magazine and community.

Suzy Fagan Parr

Suzy Fagan Parr is a director and animator at Aardman, and took the role of Additional Sequence Director on Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.

Tim Bryans

Tim Bryans is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Northern Irish animation studio ALT Animation. Tim has been instrumental in producing a number of projects such as the animation and VFX for the award-winning series Mimi’s World for Milkshake! and the series Sullivan Sails for RTE Jnr. He is also currently producing the hand-drawn animated series ‘Doodle Girl’ with Studio Meala in Ireland.

Tim Searle

Tim is a director, producer, executive producer and enthusiast. He’s worked in animation for over 30 years (he started early) and is best known for his work on Toad & Friends, Mr Bean, Danger Mouse, Dennis & Gnasher Unleashed, Have I Got News for You, I am Not An Animal, 2DTV, Horrible Histories and more.

Tom Judd

Tom is Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director of Animade.

Will Becher

Will Becher is a freelance animator, director, and co-founder of Paper & Clay. Will designed and animated the MAF Bee for 2023 in his home studio and is currently working as Supervising Animator on the upcoming Wallace & Gromit film due for release in 2024.