Con­nec­tions Hub

With over 30 years’ expe­ri­ence in kids and fam­i­ly brands, Julien Bor­de is Pres­i­dent of Medi­awan Kids & Fam­i­ly. Until 2018, he was Head of Kids and Gen­er­al Enter­tain­ment Chan­nels at Warn­er­Me­dia for France, French-speak­ing ter­ri­to­ries and Africa. Between 2005 and 2015, he cre­at­ed France Télévi­sions Kids depart­ment and estab­lished it as the leader of the Euro­pean ani­ma­tion indus­try. He was appoint­ed Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of France 3 in 2012, then Head of Dig­i­tal Pro­gram­ming with respon­si­bil­i­ty for AVOD/TVOD/SVOD. He start­ed his career at Dis­ney in 1997, where he remained until 2005, as Deputy Direc­tor then Exec­u­tive Direc­tor for Pro­grammes and Pro­duc­tion at Dis­ney Chan­nels France.

Michael Ford is the founder of Three­wise Enter­tain­ment, a Kids and Fam­i­ly Pro­duc­tion and Licens­ing com­pa­ny with ​“Fam­i­ly Fan­dom” at its heart. Three­wise seeks to build par­al­lel fran­chis­es suit­able for the whole fam­i­ly for screens of all shapes, sizes and ori­en­ta­tions, with IP that can be gift­ed from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. Michael began his career in Inde­pen­dent Film Pro­duc­tion and Financ­ing before mov­ing into the world of Live Action Chil­dren’s TV Devel­op­ment in 2015. In 2020 he launched the Pact Future30 indie, Three­wise, with a slate that spans Live Action and Ani­mat­ed devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion for Nick­elodeon, CBBC and Warn­er Bros. Dis­cov­ery. Last year, Michael and Three­wise adopt­ed Britain’s ​“most mag­i­cal” sag­gy old cloth cat, ​“BAG­PUSS”, assum­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for Glob­al Licens­ing & Mer­chan­dis­ing and Lega­cy Pro­duc­tion from top to tail.

Jerome Mazan­darani is an inde­pen­dent ani­me and enter­tain­ment indus­try con­sul­tant with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence. He holds con­cur­rent roles as Head of Ani­me (Advi­so­ry) at 8 Lions Enter­tain­ment and Glob­al Strat­e­gy Part­ner at Kasa­gi Labo Group. He is a pro­lif­ic writer and LinkedIn thought leader, con­tribut­ing to Ani­me News Net­work, Car­toon Brew, Kid­screen, Total Licens­ing, and his own The Acci­den­tal Otaku newslet­ter on Sub­stack. His career includes a lengthy tenure as Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Man­ga Enter­tain­ment UK, where he man­aged rights to over 500 ani­me titles, includ­ing Naru­to and Drag­on Ball Z for the UK/​Ireland. Jerome has brought more than 30 ani­mat­ed movies to cin­e­mas across the UK and Europe dur­ing his career, includ­ing Kat­suhi­ro Oto­mo’s AKI­RA, and Mamoru Hosada’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Sum­mer Wars. His Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er cred­its include Netflix’s Can­non Busters, and the 2017 Annecy Jury Prize-win­ning In This Cor­ner of the World, in which he pro­vid­ed gap-financ­ing and inter­na­tion­al sales and dis­tri­b­u­tion to over 150 ter­ri­to­ries. He is also Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er on the in-devel­op­ment ani­me series, ​“Amy Wild: Ani­mal Detec­tive” for A and B John­son Group, and still very active in the busi­ness of devel­op­ing, pro­duc­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing excit­ing new voic­es in long-form ani­mat­ed sto­ry­telling for mature audiences.

Syl­vain Dos San­tos is a pro­duc­er and showrun­ner and the co-founder of Chou­ette Com­pag­nie. He is a pas­sion­ate advo­cate for ani­me for over 20 years.

Sif Sav­ery is a Dan­ish direc­tor who grad­u­at­ed from The Ani­ma­tion Work­shop (Den­mark) in 2019, with addi­tion­al stud­ies at La Poudrière’s Euro­pean Pro­gramme (France) and Chungkang Col­lege of Cul­tur­al Indus­tries (South Korea). Since then, she has worked as an Ani­ma­tion Super­vi­sor and Direc­tor for stu­dios includ­ing Nør­lum and Team­TO, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly devel­op­ing her own orig­i­nal projects.

Oscar® nom­i­nat­ed pro­duc­er with expe­ri­ence in10 fea­ture ani­mat­ed films, sev­er­al short ani­mat­ed films, doc­u­men­taries, and TV review pro­grams with hun­dreds of awards, includ­ing a Stu­dent Oscar, the Cristal d’An­necy, or an Oscar® nom­i­na­tion. He works as an expert for film funds, teach­es film school stu­dents about pro­duc­tion or pitch­ing, or works as a tutor, for exam­ple with CEE Ani­ma­tion. He loves his three daugh­ters (with one wife), books, col­lect­ing movie posters, and long-dis­tance running.