Directors

Marguerite Abouet

Marguerite Abouet was born in the Youpogon quarter of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire in 1971. She is best known for her graphic novel series Aya of Yop City. She currently resides in Romainville, a suburb just outside of Paris, with her husband, illustrator Clément Oubrerie. 

Hiroaki Ando

Born in 1966, Hiroaki Ando began working in animation in 1993. He was director of computer graphics for the miniseries Memories (1995), inspired by Otomo’s short manga. He also served in this position for the animated films Metropolis (2001), Steamboy (2004) and Tekkonkinkreet (2006). He also directed episodes of the animated series Tweeny Witches (2004) and Freedom (2006).

 

 

Jae-Huun Ahn

He begins his career as an animator and soon he creates his own studio, Meditation With a Pencil, that immediately gains importance in the south Korean animation scene. His beginning goes back to 1998 with the short film One Day of Hitchcock that gained many awards in Korea and was selected by many international movie festivals. Right now, Jae-Huun Ahn is in the middle of many different projects.

 

Fede Alvarez

Born in Montevideo in 1978. After graduating from communications school, Fede started a successful career as an advertising director specializing in visual effects. At 29, he founded his own production and post-production company and produced and directed the YouTube short Panic Attack! about an alien invasion in his home city. The sci-fi short led to being signed by CAA and a deal at Mandate Pictures to direct a feature film with Sam Raimi producing. In early 2010 he was featured in the “100 most creative people in business” alongside James Cameron and Spike Jonze.

 

Films shown at FFF

Takashi Nakamura, Michael Arias

Takashi Nakamura was born in 1955 in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. He's an animator and an anime director. He worked on a 1988 cyberpunk action film AKIRA as an animation 
supervisor and has worked for many other films. He directed his first feature film Catnapped! in 1995. Among his other works are A Tree of Palme, which was an official selection of the Berlin Film Festival, The Portrait Studio (Shahinkan), and Bubu and Bubulina.
Michael Arias has had a colorful filmmaking career, spanning the worlds of VFX, animation, and traditional storytelling. After a young start on effects-heavy films as THE ABYSS and TOTAL RECALL, and with directors as diverse as Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers, he relocated to Japan, where he produced the popular MATRIX spin-off THE ANIMATRIX. In 2006 Michael directed the award-winning anime TEKKONKINKREET and then the live-actioner HEAVEN’S DOOR, and he continues to split his time between animation and live-action filmmaking.