The list of over 150 renowned international guests at Animafest 2014 includes Adam Wright, an expert in animatronics and special effects who made a brilliant career in film and fashion. He collaborated with Tim Burton and Lady Gaga, companies Disney, Warner Brothers and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and designed effects for Harry Potter films and Olympics opening in London. In Zagreb Wright will host an animatronics workshop in the Children and Youth programme. In addition to working with Wright’s models, the children will have a chance to ask the famous visitor what it was like to make Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour dress, or characters from Burton’s Frankenweenie. Aside from the workshop, Wright will participate in Animafest Pro with a lecture on his work and current trends in the field on mechanical puppet in the digital animation era. 

Media representatives and visitors from Croatia will have a chance to talk to other famous guests as well, because the festival hosts directors of films included in the main categories, like the Swiss classic Georges Schwizgebel, Bulgarian Theodore Ushev whose film Gloria Victoria is the big hit on the animation scene, the outstanding Japanese independent animator Mirai Mizue and, naturally, Croatian animators including Tomislav Mikulić who travelled from Australia for this occasion. The names of Giannalberto Bendazzi and Paul Wells, participants at Animafest Scanner 2014 symposium, complete the list.

The festival’s artistic director also presented jury members sitting in the Grand Competition, Student Competition and Commissioned Film Competition international juries: Joan Ashworth from Great Britain, head of Royal College of Art’s animation studio, which is celebrating 30 years of work and is also dedicated a special programme at Animafest 2014 with 29 select films, Mari-Hélène Girod from France, editor at Arte Creative, Lei Lei, Chinese multimedia artist and author of this year’s festival trailer and poster, Edo Lukman, the founder of Čakovec Animation School and mentor at numerous film workshops in Croatia and abroad, Belgian Emma de Swaef, co-author of Oh Willy…, the winner of Animafest Grand Prix 2012, Estonian animator Chintis Lundgren, curator and festival organiser Wiktoria Pelzer from Austria and Krešimir Zubčić, editor at Animation Department with Croatian Television and its Animatik show.