Vladimir Leschiov was born in 1970 in Daugavpils, Latvia. He attended J.Rozenthal Art school in Riga in 1989. From 1991 until 1995 he participated in several group and personal art exhibitions of independent artist in Latvia and Russia (personal exhibition in St.Petersburg in 1992). He also worked as art director, director, designer and artist for TV productions, and created several animations for TV, music video and commercials prοduction in Latvia and Europe. He won the Annual Latvian Music Records Association Award (Microphone Prize) for The Best Music Video in 1998. During 2001-2002, he studied animation at Konstfack University College of Arts,Crafts and Design, Department of Animation, Eksjö, Sweden (under the supervision of Polish professor, Piotr Dumala). Since his first film, The Letter (2002), Leschiov's films have screened internationally and won awards in all major festivals. His Villa Antropoff (co-directed with Kaspar Jancis, 2012) was a Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards. His new film, Waiting for the New Year (2016) premiered at the 2016 Annecy Int'l Film Festival, with other festival selection already to follow.
Anja Šošić: Producer at Human Ark since 2012. Graduate of the Creative Producers course at Wajda Film School in Warsaw. Studied in Germany, Croatia and Italy and holds a degree in Cultural Studies with focus on Film and Media. She worked as a production assistant on several feature films, TV documentaries and commercials in Germany and Switzerland before joining New Europe Film Sales, the only sales agent in Poland, in 2010. She is a curator for various film festivals, e.g. for Cottbus Festival of Eastern European Film where she curates the Youth Film Competition, and for Fantoche in Switzerland where she curated the Polish Focus Programme in 2015. In 2014, Anja was a speaker at the World Animation Summit in Los Angeles. She is co-founder of the Association of Polish Animation Producers, member of the European Film Academy and part of the selection committee for the nomination of the Best Animated Feature Film at the European Film Awards.
Panos Vlagopoulos was born in 1961, and studied Law and Musicology in Basel and Corfu. From 1995 to 2003 he was Head of Acquisitions, as well as responsible for e-bulletin Tetradio, of the Music Library Lilian Voudouri in Athens. From 2003 to this day he teaches in the Music Department of the Ionian University at Corfu. He is the translator in Greek of Pierre Boulez' Penser la musique aujourd'hui, Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art, and Lydia Goehr's Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. He has widely published in Greek and international journals and publication.SHORT FILMS FOR CHILDREN COMPETITION
Greta Dendrinou: 5th grade pupil. She loves classical ballet, pop music and cinema. She learns Englisha and French, and attends both dance classes and theatrical workshop classes. She loves to do roller blades and pyjama parties with her friends. Not fond of maths.
Ermina Makri: 5th grade pupil (6th Public Corfu Primary School). She attends folk dance clases, and she's also active in sailing classes and swimming lessons. She plays the cello.
Myrto Radou: 5th grade pupil (1st Public Corfu Primary School). She started dance lessons since she was 4 years old (Sotiris Bouhagiar Dance School). She likes painting, knows English, and likes riding. Her favorite fim is How to Train Your Dragon (2010).Coordinator:
Xrysa Pantsiou: She was born in Komotini, Greece. She completed the Pelos Katselis Drama School, and graduated from the School of Early Childhood (Athens), and the Department of Pre-School Education (Ιoannina, Greece). She teached in the public primary schools up to 2013, also participating in theatrical groups as an actress and director. She created the Theatrical Studio Thymeli in 2016.STUDENT & FEATURE ANIMATION
Steven Woloshen was born in Laval, Canada in 1960. For more than 30 years, he has passionately created over 50 award-winning, abstract films and time-based installations for festivals, galleries and museums. Twice nominated for Canada's Governor General's award, he has received numerous research and creation grants and, most recently, was awarded the 2016 René Jodoin lifetime achievement award, 2015 Wiesbaden Lifetime Achievement Award. Woloshen is a teacher, film conservationist, animator, craftsman and the author of two books: Recipes for Reconstruction: The Cookbook for the Frugal Filmmaker (2010), a hands-on manual for decay, renewal and other handmade, analogue film techniques, and Scratch, Crackle & Pop! A Whole Grains Approach to Making Films without a Camera (2015). Under his own banner, Scratchatopia, Woloshen has hosted solo retrospectives and taught handmade filmmaking techniques at workshops and master classes in Argentina, Morocco, USA, Slovenia, Australia, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Poland, Mexico as well as across Canada.
Katerina Giannakou: She was born in Athens. She is working in Greece, London and France as a screenwriter, script consultant and script development manager. Fiction Consultant for Alpha TV.She studied in the Faculty of Pedagogy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Acting at the Greek Art Theatre Karolos Koun and then she completed her Master of Arts on Film and TV Studies specializing in Screenwriting at the National Film and Television School of London. She is working as a screenwriter for television (I lexi pou de les, Gorgones, Koukles, etc.). She is also working as an animation film screenwriter in London (some of her prizewinning works are My Stuffed Granny and Chhaya, as well as Nature's Way and The Sea Tranced Isle). She has co-written several works in Greece and abroad, such as Pedigree, The Earth Belongs to No One, Cats keep falling on my head, etc.). Her play Over a Bridge was performed in Soho Theatre, London, while her play Mia Kanoniki Imera (An ordinary day) was performed for two consecutive seasons in Athens winning many prizes. Her works have been selected for an honorary screening at BAFTA Stars of Tomorrow and have also won several prizes in Greece and abroad (such as: Best animation in Edinburgh Film Festival, Grand Award of the Jury and Best International at Festival International de Animación, Honorary script distinction at Festival of Drama (Greece), Best Animated Short Award at the London Independent Film Festival and Best Animation Film at Montréal World Film Festival, PRIX SAKURA AWARD in Poitiers Film Festival, Grand).
Dominica Harrison is an award-winning artist specialising in animation and printmaking.She received a traditional art education in Moscow where she lived andworked as an in-house illustrator for an Russian expat magazine 'PASSPORT' before moving to UK to receive her degree in Animation from Edinburgh College of Art in 2016. During her time in Edinburgh her films 'To and Fro' (2015) and 'Illusions' (2016) were completed. Both films were done in screen-printing technique and shown at the aniamtion festivals and art exhibitions around the world. Shortly after graduation she worked as an animator and a painter on a feature animated film 'Loving Vincent' in Gdansk. In 2017 she completed two residencies in East London Printmakers and Jealous Studio in London and produced a short film 'Displacement and Other Experiments' (2017) based on her work with ELP. At the moment she is based in London and working on a short animated film for documentary filmmaker Bill Thisdell. She will be starting her position as an animation technician at London College of Communication in the beginning of April.
