Jury

AWARD JURY FAB 2022

Rosangela de Araujo

Rosangela de Araujo is a multi media artist, script writer and poet. She studied Visual Communication at Escola de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro and has a Master of Fine Arts in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles.
She conceived and taught the course Experimental Animation at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf for 22 years. She is currently substitute professor at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM).

Izabela Plucinska

Izabela Plucinska was born in Poland, now she lives in Germany. She is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and Film Animation of the Cinematography Department at the Lodz Film School, where she also completed her Ph.D. in the field of animation. Her filmography includes “Jam Session” a winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, “Esterhazy” and “Sexy Laundry”. Currently she is a teacher at the Academy Szczecin. She specialises in clay animation. „98 kg“ is her first drawing movie.

At the moment, Plucińska, a Berliner by adoption, is busily working at her own production company, Clay Traces, along with her associates. Owing to her renown as an artist, she frequently leads workshops and teaches film animation at universities internationally. Several exhibi- tions have featured her work. Now she’s back with Portret Susanne, her latest film, inspired by short novel of Roland Topor.

Mykyta Lyskov

Mykyta Lyskov was born in 1983 in Dnipro, Ukraine. From 1997 to 2002 he studied painting at the Dnipro Art Academy and graduated in animation directing at the Kiev National University of Theater, Cinema and Television in 2012. Today, he creates animation in his hometown of Dnipro. Among others, Lyskov is known for his award-winning films DEEP LOVE (original title: Kohannia) and BECOMING HUMAN.

Kristine Knudsen

Kristine Knudsen studied Film Production at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Germany, followed by MEGA, EAVE and Inside Pictures. 2006 she co- founded “Knudsen Pictures GmbH” in Berlin (Germany) and in 2010 “Den siste skilling AS” in Bergen (Norway).

She is currently producing CGI animated feature film RICHARD THE STORK AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GREAT JEWEL (Dir: M.R.Tange & B. Quabeck, 2023). Her track record includes RICHARD THE STORK (Dir: T. Genkel & R. Memari, Berlinale Generation 2017) which was theatrically released in 63 countries and to date has had close to 4 million admissions worldwide. She also served as aexecutive producer on 2D animated feature TITINA (K. Næss, 2022) produced by Mikrofilm.

Knudsen was nominated for “European Animation Producer of the year 2017” together with her co producers at Cartoon Movie 2017 and was awarded the Bavarian Film Award for “Best German Children’s Film” 2018. She is Co- Chairwoman of Animation Norway and Board Member of Norwegian Producers Association. She is a Member of German Producers Association Produzentenallianz, European Film Academy and German Film Academy.

Selection Team

Competition: German Animation

Annegret Richter

Annegret is an Executive Manager of AG Animationsfilm, a National Association for the German animation industry. She studied at the Mercy College New York and continued at University Leipzig in Communications and Media Studies. From 2002 until 2008, she worked as research fellow for Film and TV at University Leipzig. She served for two years as the festival director of the Filmfest Dresden and switched to Programme Direction for animated films at the international festival for documentary and animated films in Leipzig until 2015. She has been teaching at Fernsehakademie Mitteldeutschland since 2006, is member of the awards committee MDM, and manages the Saxon student film festival ab!. Animated documentaries constitute the special field of her research, worldwide lectures, and film programme curations since 2004.

Fabian Fornalski

Fabian Fornalski was born in Berlin shortly after the Wende. Here he works as a freelance director and editor for film/advertising. Since 2019, he has been working at the Deutsche Kinemathek and leading workshops, guided tours and film talks as an educational consultant. In addition, since the end of 2020, he has been taking on voice direction and writing audio descriptions for series and feature films as an author. In the same year, he became part of the FAB team. Here he works as a moderator, among other things, and wrote catalogue texts for the exhibition as part of the FAB Dimensional in 2021.

Gitte Hellwig

Gitte Hellwig studied media and cultural studies in Berlin and animation in Potsdam- Babelsberg. In addition to working for various television productions, she works in media education for the Deutsche Kinemathek. She currently lives in Berlin and is working on her new short film.

Jan Utecht

Jan Utecht is a graduate of Film University Babelsberg. After finishing his graduation film Reflecting Black in 2016 he quit drawing. Today Jan has two kids and runs All The Problems In This World, a bookshop for indie comics and role-playing games in Berlin.

Competitions: International Animation

Sabine Huber

Sabine Huber born 1963, studied communication design at the state academy of fine arts in Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and animation at the Film Academy Baden- Württemberg. She has been working as a freelance director for various television stations since 1992.
Her works include the film “Das Flederschwein in der Unterwelt” and the music video the music video “zehn kleine Jägermeister” for “Die Toten Hosen”. As a lecturer for animated film she taught among others at the Rocky Mountain Collage in Denver Colorado.

Jost Althoff

Jost Althoff is a member of the Talking Animals collective. After a short, hearty festival career, he has been animating since 2010, mainly for various television formats, mostly in children’s films. Recently also in science education. Where possible, he is also currently working on his first full-length comic.

Nina Prange

Nina Prange is a director and creative producer. Her graduation film from the Animation Institute at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg WILD EYES was screened at festivals worldwide and, in addition to several prizes, was awarded the FBW’s rating of especially valuable. Since 2019, she has been responsible for project development at Traumhaus Studios.

Polina Puddubna

​​Polina Piddubna is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist, young filmmaker, social activist and animation student based in Berlin.
Before she became part of the FAB team, she already gained experience at Interfilm Berlin.

Competition: New Talents

Franka Sachse

Franka Sachse is an independent filmmaker. To create her animated films, she assumes the role of a scriptwriter, storyboard artist, art director, animator and director. Often she realises her visions through digital drawn animation, but also uses analog techniques to approach topics like interpersonal relationships and ambivalent feeling. Furthermore, Franka is animating young talents to animate through her sessions at international workshops and her lecturing activities at different universities.

Malte Stein

Malte Stein is an independent animation film director from Berlin. In 2013 he graduated from the University of Film and Television Konrad Wolf in Potsdam Babelsberg with a diploma in animation. Before that he studied screenwriting and dramaturgy and drew many comic stories since the 90s. His films BLUE DREAM (2013), FLUT (2018) and DING (2021) have been shown at numerous film festivals around the world and have won several awards.

Lucia Deyi

Lucia is a screenwriter and actress. She came into closer contact with the art of animated film at the California Institute of the Arts. In 2020, she helped out with the organisation of the FAB for the first time. In the meantime, she has written several scripts, including for a German television series, and works as a voice actor on the side.

Stefan Vogt

Stefan was born in a very western part of Germany. As a kid he was moved to the south. Then he studied animation under Paul Driesen and Andreas Hykade in Kassel. Now he lives and works as a free animation artist in Berlin.

Competition: Animated Commissions

Ninett Hartmann

Ninett Hartmann studied applied media science at Philipps University of Marburg. She has since worked on various TV, film and commercial sets as a production manager, scriptwriter, producer and director. She currently works in Berlin as a producer for animated commercial productions.

Cristian Wiesenfeld

Cristian Wiesenfeld is a graphic designer and animation director born in Santiago de Chile and currently based in Berlin. Cristian’s portfolio covers a broad range of graphic styles and formats, from music videos to commercial animation. Cristian’s artworks were presented at different festivals and exhibitions around the world. His shortfilm”Missing” has won several prizes, including the Friese Award at the Mo & Friese Children’s Shortfilm Festival in Hamburg, Germany.

Competition: Pink Panda

Leonard, 5 years

Leonard often invents things out of bricks and likes watching movies. His favorite thing to do is goof off with his little sister.

Emilia, turning 8 soon

Emilia likes to paint and make stop motion movies with mom’s iPad. When she is bored, she also likes to play with her cat Bounty.

Maja, 5 years

Maja is passionate about break dancing and loves to dash around the playground. Her favorite cartoon series is “Grizzy and the Lemmings”.

Julie, 7 years

Julie is a real expert for entertaining video clips. When she’s not watching videos, she likes to build caves, dress up, or sing.

Olivia, 5 years

Olivia loves ballet dancing, dressing up, putting on makeup, writing her own books, painting and crafting.