24.08.2026
Festival Jury 2026
We are honoured to welcome Anita Killi, Alexander Gratzer and Thomas Volda to this year’s TAFF jury. Bringing together three acclaimed animation filmmakers and artists from across Europe, this year’s jury will select the winners of TAFF’s International Competition and celebrate the year’s most remarkable animated short films. Here they are!
Anita Killi
Anita Killi is the founder of Trollfilm and one of Norway’s leading voices in animation. She studied animation in Volda and at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, graduating in 1996 with a specialization in multi-plan animation. In 2020, she became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Working with handcrafted cutouts and stop-motion, she has developed a distinctive poetic-lyrical language – inspired by Yuri Norstein – to tell socially engaged stories for children and families, addressing themes such as domestic violence, war, cancer, sibling incest and parentification. Her acclaimed films, including Tornehekken (2001) and Angry Man (2009), the most awarded film in the world in 2010, have won over 100 international awards. She is currently preparing her first animated feature film, Christmas Survivors.
Alexander Gratzer
Alexander Gratzer is an animation director and artist from Austria. His short films, including Espresso, Museum Guard, Apfelmus and In the Upper Room, have screened internationally and received numerous awards. He holds a diploma in painting from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and a Master in Animation from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest. Combining humour with an interest in human behaviour, relationships and inner worlds, his hand-drawn work explores the contradictions and absurdities of everyday life through dialogue and small gestures When he is not making films, he spends a considerable amount of time in saunas.
Thomas Volda
Thomas Volda is a British-born animation film director and multidisciplinary artist based in Croatia, working primarily in stop-motion animation. A graduate of the University of Wales Institute Cardiff, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Together with his partner Ivana Volda the couple have written, co-directed and animated several animated short films. Their distinctive work blends handcrafted animation with experimental visual storytelling, exploring themes of memory, nature, perception, and the human condition. Their films including Simulacra, Imbued Life, and Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse, have been screened internationally at major animation festivals and received numerous awards. Alongside filmmaking, Thomas is a multidisciplinary artist often combining animation and performance art disciplines in his work, he has created puppet animation performances at numerous international festivals and galleries across Europe.
Join us in TAFF and meet the Jury at the festival on 26–30 August!
