Keynotes, case stud­ies & panels

Chlagou Sami is a French entre­pre­neur spe­cial­iz­ing in video games and trans­me­dia IP devel­op­ment. After begin­ning his career in audio­vi­su­al pro­duc­tion, he found­ed sev­er­al gam­ing com­pa­nies, includ­ing Free Agent Games, Rushon­game, and Pix­el­Heart. He lat­er cre­at­ed ​“Cross The Ages”, an inter­na­tion­al sci-fi and fan­ta­sy fran­chise bridg­ing books, trad­ing cards, video games, and Web3. A reg­u­lar speak­er at glob­al tech and blockchain events, he focus­es on build­ing long-term intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and posi­tion­ing Mar­seille as a cre­ative inno­va­tion hub.

Evan is a high­ly award­ed Senior Client Direc­tor at The Gang Swe­den with sig­nif­i­cant expe­ri­ence help­ing brands acti­vate on UGC Plat­forms like Roblox and Fort­nite to reach younger audi­ences in fun, gam­i­fied ways at scale. 

Matt Shep­ard spent 15+ years cre­at­ing and launch­ing games for some of the biggest Kids IPs/​Brands and most recent­ly spe­cial­is­ing in Roblox experiences.

Audrey Schomer is a media ana­lyst at Lumi­nate Intel­li­gence, a mar­ket research divi­sion of the enter­tain­ment data provider Lumi­nate, where her research and writ­ing has focused on gen­er­a­tive AI in the film, TV and music indus­tries. Pre­vi­ous­ly, she cov­ered top­ics and trends in media, dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing and tech­nol­o­gy as a research ana­lyst at Bar­clays, eMar­keter, and Busi­ness Insid­er Intelligence.

Mar­i­anne Car­pen­tier is an inno­va­tion leader at TF1 with a long his­to­ry in ani­ma­tion and trans­me­dia sto­ry­telling. From devel­op­ing ani­mat­ed worlds to launch­ing Europe’s first enter­tain­ment meta­verse, she explores how A.I. and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies can expand imag­i­na­tion itself. She turns cre­ative chal­lenges into new nar­ra­tive spaces, ensur­ing inno­va­tion remains eth­i­cal, play­ful, and deeply human.

Cathal co-found­ed Brown Bag Films in 1994 and as its man­ag­ing direc­tor has seen it grow to become a world lead­ing pro­duc­er of ani­mat­ed chil­drens pro­grammes. In 2002 Cathal Direct­ed the short film ​‘Give Up Yer Aul Sins’ which was nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award and in 2010 Brown Bag Films were nom­i­nat­ed for a sec­ond Acad­e­my Award with the short film ​“Granny O’Grimm”. In 2015 Brown Bag Films was acquired by 9Story Media Group and Cathal became the COO respon­si­ble for all ani­ma­tion Pro­duc­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy across the group. Employ­ing over 1,100 tal­ent­ed staff across stu­dios in Dublin, Toron­to and Bali. Brown Bag Films mis­sion is to pro­duce the best qual­i­ty ani­ma­tion for chil­dren on tele­vi­sion. In 2024, 9Story Media Group was acquired by the pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny Scholastic.

Ele­na Sinel FRSA is a mul­ti- award-win­ning social entre­pre­neur, AI ethi­cist and the vision­ary founder of Teens in AI, an inter­na­tion­al­ly acclaimed ini­tia­tive launched at the UN AI for Good Glob­al Sum­mit in 2018. Recog­nised for her exper­tise in AI Lit­er­a­cy and AI Ethics, Ele­na is ded­i­cat­ed to equip­ping the next gen­er­a­tion with skills to address com­plex glob­al chal­lenges. Her lead­er­ship in embed­ding AI edu­ca­tion into broad­er soci­etal frame­works has fos­tered part­ner­ships with FTSE 100 com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ments world­wide, pro­mot­ing diverse per­spec­tives in tech. Teens in AI equips young peo­ple aged 13-18 with the skills need­ed to design respon­si­ble AI solu­tions that address soci­etal challenges.

Michelle Con­nol­ly is the Founder of Edu­ca­tion­al Voice, a Belfast-based ani­ma­tion stu­dio, and Learn­ing­Mole, a free edu­ca­tion­al plat­form reach­ing over 260,000 YouTube sub­scribers across 150+ coun­tries. A for­mer pri­ma­ry school teacher with 16+ years of class­room expe­ri­ence, Michelle com­bines edu­ca­tion­al exper­tise with ani­ma­tion pro­duc­tion knowl­edge, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on how AI is trans­form­ing the cre­ative industries.

Taïeb Ben Amor is Direc­tor of Pro­duc­tion & Busi­ness Affairs at Ubisoft Film & Tele­vi­sion, with over 15 years of expe­ri­ence in the audio­vi­su­al indus­try. He over­sees the devel­op­ment and finan­cial struc­tur­ing of inter­na­tion­al ani­ma­tion projects and leads co-pro­duc­tion, bud­get­ing, and deal­mak­ing efforts. Before join­ing Ubisoft, he worked with­in the M6 Group’s cin­e­ma and ani­ma­tion divi­sions, con­tribut­ing to both fea­ture film strat­e­gy and ani­mat­ed con­tent development. 

Angéli­ca is the Head of Taller del Chu­cho. She was Sec­ond Unit: Pro­duc­tion Super­vi­sor of ​“Pinoc­chio”. Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er for ​“Humo” (2023), nom­i­nat­ed to the Annie Awards, won an Ariel Award. Pro­duc­er of ​“Dolores” (2024). Pro­duc­er for ​“Teatro Secre­to” (2025). Pro­duc­er for ​“Lit­tle Nightmare’s” pilot (2025). Cur­rent­ly work­ing on ​“The Ori­gin of Expe­ri­ence”. In 2024 she opens her pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Tomasa Films. She was Head of Indus­try and Mar­ket at Guadala­jara Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. Par­tic­i­pat­ed as a speak­er in dif­fer­ent forums: Annecy, Pix­e­latl, Chile­monos among oth­ers. Jury mem­ber of fes­ti­vals such as SAN­F­IC, DOC­SMX, BAM, EFICINE. Recent­ly gave a course on pro­duc­tion in ani­ma­tion at EICTV in Cuba.

Sarah Cox is Chief Cre­ative Direc­tor at Aard­man, shap­ing cre­ative strat­e­gy and over­see­ing acclaimed projects such as Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed ​“Robin Robin”, Emmy-win­ning ​“Shaun the Sheep” pro­duc­tions, and col­lab­o­rat­ing with major part­ners such as Lucas­film and Poké­mon. For­mer­ly co-founder of Arthur­Cox, she has pro­duced and direct­ed BAF­TA-nom­i­nat­ed work. Her films have won inter­na­tion­al awards, she has taught ani­ma­tion at NFTS, is a BAF­TA and AMPAS vot­ing mem­ber, and fre­quent­ly speaks at indus­try events.

Ker­di is a Pro­duc­er in Nuku­film since 2003. She has pro­duced of 50 ani­ma­tion shorts and 2 inter­na­tion­al­ly co-pro­duced ani­mat­ed fea­tures – ​“Lisa Limone” and ​“Maroc Orange and Cap­tain Morten and the Spi­der Queen”. In 2023 a short film ​“Koerko­rter (Dog Apart­ment)” was offi­cial­ly short­list­ed to Acad­e­my Award Oscar. She is also a lec­tor of pro­duc­tion in Eston­ian Art Acad­e­my ani­ma­tion depart­ment and Baltic Media School, the CEO of Eston­ian Ani­ma­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, the CEO of Eston­ian Film­mak­ers Asso­ci­a­tion and the CEO of Euro­pean Ani­ma­tion Awards Emile Awards. 

Thibault is a com­pos­er of music for short and fea­ture films, ani­mat­ed films, and doc­u­men­taries for cin­e­ma, tele­vi­sion, and stream­ing plat­forms. He works in France and inter­na­tion­al­ly, and has col­lab­o­rat­ed with Les Arma­teurs, Canal+, Europa­Corp, Dis­ney, Spe­cial Touch Stu­dios, ARTE, Ellipse Ani­me, and France Télévi­sions. He is skilled in orches­tral writ­ing and has devel­oped a ver­sa­tile musi­cal approach adapt­ed to the nar­ra­tive require­ments of each project. He works equal­ly well for ani­ma­tion and live-action films.

P.T. Adam­czyk is an in-house com­pos­er at CD PRO­JEKT RED. 

Born in 1975, Lau­rence dis­cov­ered the world of film fes­ti­vals at a young age thanks to her father, who was pres­i­dent of the Tous Courts Fes­ti­val in Aix-en-Provence (France) for 20 years. After study­ing cin­e­ma at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mont­pel­li­er and then in Mon­tre­al, she worked on the organ­i­sa­tion of the FID Mar­seille and has been in charge of the short film com­pe­ti­tion at the Fes­ti­val Music & Cin­e­ma Mar­seille since 2012. She is also the coor­di­na­tor of cul­tur­al and social activ­i­ties at Alcimé, the asso­ci­a­tion behind the MCM Festival.

Hay­a­to Inoue is a Japan­ese ani­ma­tion direc­tor and COO of Tokyo Epic, a Tokyo-based cre­ative stu­dio spe­cial­iz­ing in AI-dri­ven ani­ma­tion and sto­ry­telling. He focus­es on inte­grat­ing human direct­ing with AI tools to cre­ate effi­cient yet artis­ti­cal­ly con­trolled ani­ma­tion work­flows. His work empha­sizes ​“inten­tion­al cre­ativ­i­ty,” using AI as a cre­ative accel­er­a­tor rather than a replace­ment. Through inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tions, he explores new stan­dards for ani­ma­tion pro­duc­tion, train­ing, and cre­ative devel­op­ment in the AI era.

Expert in immer­sive strate­gies and AI, Olivia Pap­i­ni is cur­rent­ly the Coun­try Man­ag­er (CMO) France for Pock­et Ani­me by Tokyo Epic. She leads mas­ter­class­es and com­mer­cial strat­e­gy for the deploy­ment of gen­er­a­tive AI solu­tions with­in the ani­ma­tion indus­try. With an inter­na­tion­al career span­ning France and Japan (Gen­tosha, Tokyo Epic), she bridges cul­tur­al gaps by merg­ing visu­al sto­ry­telling with dis­rup­tive tech­nolo­gies. Founder of La Méduse Vio­lette and French Tech board mem­ber, she also teach­es at CNAM and Les Gob­elins. Her exper­tise cov­ers Cre­at­e­ch, Gam­ing (Roblox, Fort­nite), and EdTech, focus­ing on design­ing the work­flows and careers of the future. 

With 30 years in game devel­op­ment and tech, Kel­ly’s con­tributed to renowned fran­chis­es like ​“Tomb Raider”, ​“Trans­form­ers” and ​“Can­dy Crush”. She skill­ful­ly applies gam­i­fi­ca­tion across diverse ver­ti­cals, from fash­ion to enter­tain­ment. Pas­sion­ate about advanc­ing tech, she co-found­ed Aequa­land, pio­neer­ing NFT stan­dards, and serves as CTO of NAK3D, seam­less­ly inte­grat­ing lux­u­ry, games and metaverses.

Ruth Lem­men works as a sys­temic coach, medi­a­tor and con­sul­tant for teams, com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als and as a project and pro­gram man­ag­er, the lat­er most­ly with the indie game devel­op­ment scene. She is since its start in 2022 involved in the strate­gic devel­op­ment of the Indie Games Res­i­den­cy ​“The Rab­bit”. She also works as an expert for the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion for var­i­ous Euro­pean fund­ing pro­grams. Ruth is co-founder and ambas­sador of Wom­enize! - a plat­form that pro­motes diver­si­ty in the fields of tech, games and dig­i­tal econ­o­my. Wom­enize! has been grant­ed the Women in Games Euro­pean Advo­ca­cy Award in 2019.