Animation Cohort

Overview
Structure
Mentors
Cohort

An Institute for the Moving Image program for independent animators exploring author-driven storytelling and distinctive visual languages

The Animation Cohort supports artists working outside commercial pipelines, with a focus on experimentation, personal expression, and narrative risk.

Over three months, 15 participants take part in three one-week intensives — two online and one in person — combining hands-on workshops, mentorship, and peer collaboration to advance original animation projects.

Program Structure

15 participants
Three one-week intensives (two online, one in person)
Project-based development + peer exchange

Five participants develop their own projects throughout the program. The remaining ten contribute to cohort projects, offering feedback and expanding their creative practice through collaboration.

Mentors support both artistic development and practical pathways, including production planning, financing strategies, and international circulation.

The in-person intensive culminates in a public pitch event featuring five projects, creating industry visibility and connection opportunities.

By the end of the program, participants leave with:

A more defined creative voice
Stronger collaborative skills
Practical tools to move ambitious, auteur-driven animation toward production
Expanded local and international networks

Animation Mentors

Amanda Strong

Amanda Strong is a Canadian Screen Award- and Emmy-nominated director, artist, and stop motion storyteller who has served as a media-based artist for nearly 20 years. She is Michif/Red River Métis and a member of the MMF (Manitoba Métis Federation). Strong is the owner, producer, and director of Vancouver-based animation studio Spotted Fawn Productions, who create stop motion animations, books, and installations while exploring digital technologies that complement the hand made art of stop motion. Strong was formerly a director at Atomic Cartoons and director of the recent Emmy Award-winning 2D animated TV series Molly of Denali on PBS. Her studio successes have screened and exhibited across the globe, most notably at Sundance, Cannes, TIFF, TIFF Top 10, VIFF, OIAF, the Museum of Anthropology, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and the National Museum of American History.

Isona Admetlla Font

Isona Admetlla is a sociologist, cultural manager, and audience designer specializing in cinema, audience engagement, and impact strategies. For almost 16 years, she coordinated the Berlinale World Cinema Fund, supporting filmmakers and producers from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe. As an independent consultant, she now advises film projects, festivals, industry platforms, and training initiatives worldwide on audience design, international positioning, distribution, communication, and impact.

Kristie Robinson

With extensive experience in journalism, the non-profit sector, and the world of documentary, Kristie Robinson has spent two decades working at the intersection of storytelling and impact. Kristie is a British impact strategist who has been working in the field for over a decade, initially with DocSociety on Good Pitch events across the Western Hemisphere between 2013 and 2019, where she worked with film teams on impact strategy and campaign building. Kristie is a member of GIPA (Global Impact Producers Alliance), and EWA (European Women’s Audiovisual Network).

Matīss Kaža

Matīss Kaža is an Academy Award-winning Latvian producer, director, and writer. He is best known for co-writing and producing the animated feature film Flow (2024), directed by Gints Zilbalodis, which won both the first ever Golden Globe and the first Oscar for an independent animated feature. Recent producing credits include Sisters (Warsaw Film Festival 2022 1-2 Competition Award winner) by Linda Olte, and Drowning Dry (winner of two awards in the Locarno 2024 Main Competition) by Laurynas Bareiša.

Silvia Lobo

Silvia Lobo is a film distributor, audience design consultant, and lawyer specialised in intellectual property. She is the founder of Stendhal Films, where she supports films and audiovisual projects in development, financing, positioning, festival strategy, distribution, public funding, and commercial exploitation. She has worked for companies such as Sony Pictures and Morena Films, and has been involved in the distribution of more than 40 independent films for companies including Sideral Cinema, Paco Poch Cinema, El Sur Films, Twelve Oaks Pictures, Mirror Audiovisual, and Silencio Cinema.

Creators

Aerin Wu

Aerin Wu is a Chinese Canadian filmmaker and visual artist based in Vancouver. She holds a BA in Animation and Digital Arts, with a minor in Philosophy, from the University of Southern California. Her work leans into surreal, image-driven storytelling, often focusing on emotionally intense narratives that explore human vulnerability. Her debut short film Nono was an official selection at 10+ international festivals. She has worked with Giant Ant, the National Film Board of Canada, and Miji Home.

Alissar Kobeissi

Alissar Kobeissi is a Palestinian-Lebanese multi-media animator with over a decade of experience in feature animation, known for crafting expressive, performance-driven character animation for major international studios. She began her feature film career at Nwave in Brussels before joining Sony Pictures Imageworks to work on Smallfoot. She later contributed to the pre-production and production of Sing 2 at Illumination Mac Guff, returned to Sony to work on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and In Your Dreams, then jumped to Walt Disney Animation Studios to work on Zootopia 2 before finally coming back to Sony Imageworks to work as a lead on Spiderman: Beyond the Spiderverse.

Bree Island

Bree Island is a writer, director, visual artist, and emerging animation filmmaker from Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, Treaty 8 territory. Working at the intersection of animation, technology, and Indigenous storytelling, they are developing sakâw âcikâstêpicikan (Woodland animation), a cinematic storytelling practice that extends Woodland art into a time-based medium rooted in nêhiyaw worldviews. Drawing on a background in visual effects, creative leadership, and Indigenous cultural storytelling, Bree is focused on developing animated projects for film and television that center Indigenous voices, ways of living, and futures.

Rana Rachid

Rana Rachid is a Canadian-based filmmaker and animation artist from Hadatha, a small village in southern Lebanon. She holds a degree in Cinema and Television from the Lebanese University and a Master’s in 2D/3D Animation from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. Her work spans directing, animation, and storyboarding. She directed two short films, Filthy (2021) and Touched (2023), which screened internationally, with Touched receiving awards in the Best Short Animation category. Through her films, Rana aims to challenge perceptions and spark conversations around mental health, invisible struggles, and environmental issues.

Sydnie Baynes

Sydnie Baynes is a Toronto-based animator and visual artist whose surreal, experimental work explores Black history, ancestry, and identity. Her practice centers Black femininity, self-love, and heritage, weaving personal and collective narratives that invite reflection on culture and memory. Committed to community engagement, she serves as Co-Lead of Women in Animation Montreal and is a recipient of Concordia University’s Black Excellence Award in Community Engagement. Her films include For White Folks Only (Ottawa International Animation Festival, Fabienne Colas Foundation’s Being Black in Canada), African American Express (TIFF Next Wave, Fantasia International Film Festival, Sankofa Square), and the CBC Canada Reads 2026 trailer Watch Out for Her.

Abby Ridd

Abby Ridd is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker specializing in stop-motion animation and experimental storytelling. Her work is rooted in place, materiality, and memory. She earned a BFA in Film Production from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, where she explored animation, narrative, experimental, and analog filmmaking practices. Her debut stop-motion comedy, The Only Person in the World, screened at the Whistler Film Festival, Chilliwack Independent Film Festival, and Ignite Youth Arts Festival. Subsequent works, including Giggle, Gurgle, Gobble and Gooseland, also screened at Ignite. Her latest animated short film, To Burn Our Sacred House, premiered at the TIFF MDFF Student Select Showcase in July 2026.

Cameron Kletke

Cameron Kletke is a Vancouver-based animator and filmmaker. She graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design with a Bachelor of Media Arts, and creates hand-drawn and experimental animated films that explore identity, intimacy, and human connection. Her award-winning thesis film, Between You and Me, received the Best Canadian Student Film award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and screened at festivals worldwide, including Annecy, Sweaty Eyeballs, GIRAF, VIFF, and more. Cameron has collaborated with the National Film Board of Canada through its HotHouse apprenticeship program, and is currently developing a new short film inspired by Canadian folklore with artist + filmmaker Mia Milardo.

Gabriela Tavora

Gabriela Tavora is a visual storytelling generalist with a Bachelors in Digital Media & Systems and seven years of industry experience in the animation industry as a Storyboard Artist. She is the 2D animator, writer, director, and watercolorist for her personal project Ed&Chichi. She is passionate about stories with depth and real-life parallels that are complemented by intentional visuals, be it live-action, animation, comics, or video-games.

Ignacio Betancourt

Ignacio Betancourt is Salvadoran-Canadian animator, educator, and artist. He graduated with a BMA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Originally from El Salvador and of Palestinian descent, Ignacio now lives in Vancouver situated on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Over the past 10 years Betancourt has worked as a visual artist, teacher, political communicator, CGI Lighter, and filmmaker, moving between the various disciplines and their intersections to find the best avenue for each story.

Jacqueline Huskisson

Jacqueline Huskisson is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work explores narrative through comics, painting, sculpture, and moving image. She received a BFA in print media from the Alberta College of Art and Design (now AUArts) and an MFA in studio arts from the Belfast School of Art in Northern Ireland. Her practice often centers on symbolic characters and surreal environments that examine themes of psychological transformation, vulnerability, and the cyclical nature of emotional experience. Huskisson’s work has been exhibited in Canada and internationally, including projects and residencies in Berlin, Germany.

Kerri Lauren Flannigan

Kerri Flannigan is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and educator currently based on Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ Territories (Victoria, BC). Collaging mediums and methodologies is integral to Flannigan’s practice, which combines in-depth research with intuitive forms of making; drawing and video with performance, and printmaking with animation. With a background in experimental animation and zine-making, Flannigan is interested in different ways of creating narratives. Her works endeavour to create a framework through which the personal is critically connected to wider historical and cultural spheres of context.

Margaryta Winkler

Margaryta Winkler is a Ukrainian visual artist based in Vancouver, BC working across animation, illustration, and book cover design. She is a Fulbright alumna and holds an MFA in illustration from Rhode Island School of Design. Her animated thesis film Dreamtracks (2026) has screened at festivals in Europe and the Americas, and her author-illustrator debut Homebound was published by Orecchio Acerbo in 2026. She works both digitally and traditionally with a special love for watercolour and coloured pencils and can’t stop making stories about birds.

Ridaa Khan

Ridaa Khan is a South-Asian Canadian illustrator and animator based in Vancouver, Canada. Through her work as a visual designer, she explores her curiosity about the world around her and enjoys collaborating with fellow creatives to develop ideas and bring diverse perspectives to life. Her animated films have been featured at several Canadian film festivals, including the Toronto Animation Arts Festival International, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and Stop Motion Montreal. She currently works as a 2D animator at Titmouse Canada, contributing to a range of animated TV series including Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Invincible Fight Girl, and Haunted Hotel.

Sima Naseem

Sima Naseem is a South Asian artist and animator, based in Toronto, working in stop motion and 2D animation. Her narrative practice explores culture, ecology, and relationships through emotionally resonant storytelling. Naseem’s film, My Friend in the Jingle Truck, was featured on CBC Gem and received Best Animation awards from CILECT North America (2024), the Mosaic International Film Festival (2024), and the Muslim International Film Festival (2023). Sima is currently directing In the Mess of Leaves, a stop-motion short supported by the NFB, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council. Her work is driven by a commitment to representing marginalized voices through film.

Yen Ta Feng

Yen Ta Feng is an animator/artist based in Vancouver, BC. Born in Taipei, his work has screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival, and on CBC Gem. His directorial debut won Best Animation at Oxford International Short Film Festival and was showcased at the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, featured in the press of Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture. Feng is the Director of Programming for the Vancouver Asian Film Festival and the Animation Ambassador and portfolio judge for his alma mater OCAD University. An alum of the VIFF Catalyst Mentorship Program, he specializes in traditional hand-painted celluloid animation, using traces of his hand and brush to convey complex emotions.