Animated film director. Born in Poland, she now lives in Germany. She is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and Film Animation of the Cinematography Department at the Lodz Film School, where she also completed her Ph.D. in the field of animation.

She specialises in clay animation. Her filmography includes "Jam Session" (2005) - a winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, "Esterhazy" (2009) and "Sexy Laundry" (2015).

Currently she is a teacher at the Academy of Art in Szczecin, at the same time she is working at her own production company, ClayTraces, and is back with "Portrait of Suzanne", her latest film, inspired by a short novel by Roland Topor.

Réka Bucsi is a Hungarian animation filmmaker and graduate of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (2013). Her Oscar-shortlisted graduation film Symphony no. 42 (2014) launched a festival career that includes premieres at Berlinale Shorts, and selections at Sundance, SXSW, Ottawa, AFI Fest, and BFI London.

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Her short LOVE was nominated for Best Short at the European Film Awards, earning her European Film Academy membership in 2017. Solar Walk won the Audi Short Film Award at Berlinale (2018), was nominated for an Annie Award, and is part of the Criterion Collection.

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Réka has served on the Berlinale Shorts Jury (2020), spoken at Pictoplasma (Berlin & NYC), FMX, and several U.S. institutions including CalArts. In 2021, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

A Prague-based film distribution manager and festival strategist, she has helped hundreds of short films reach top festivals like Cannes, Berlinale, Annecy, Sundance, and even the Academy Awards.

For over eight years, she’s supported independent filmmakers, students, and production companies with tailored festival strategies, global sales, and full logistics—from submissions to PR.

She also curates festival programs, gives lectures on festival distribution, and founded FAMUfilms.cz, the first European SVOD platform by a film school.

Maximilian Breckwoldt is a Berlin-based cultural worker and independent scholar. Since 2023, they have worked with the Festival of Animation Berlin, organizing the Berlin Animation HUB, an industry event connecting animators and producers.

They’ve led Film and Genre Theory workshops at the Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg (2023, 2024), and their academic work on body politics in horror cinema has been featured at the Cine-Excess conference in the UK. Their peer-reviewed essay on Hellraiser was published in Cine-Excess Journal Issue 6.

Maximilian also collaborates with queer film distributor Salzgeber, co-organizes the Queerfilmfestival in Germany and Austria, and contributes to the queer film magazine sissy.