Jury announcement

Johnny Semerad

Johnnie Semerad grew up in Schenectady, New York. He played football and was captain of the wrestling team. His dream was to move to New York City and become an artist. At 18, he went to Pratt Institute to be the next great American illustrator, but his fine art path soon shifted to computers and special effects.

A few years later, he started QuietMan—an innovative studio with many firsts: the first Beatles music video, the first primetime Emmy for a TV commercial, and the first five-second TV commercials. QuietMan has won virtually every major advertising award, including Emmys and even a Grammy. The team has worked on more than 150 Super Bowl commercials. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, has won over 100 film festival awards, and includes two Academy Award–eligible projects. Johnnie has directed many live-action and animated TV commercials and helped build a powerful live animation system used on well over 100 projects.

This year, he launched the YouTube channel Deep Space Degenerates, which already has millions of views and hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Through it all, his greatest joys are his daughters, Emma and Dara.

 

Bill Plympton

Bill Plympton: The King of Indie Animation Returns to Animaze

Bill Plympton is a legendary, two-time Academy Award-nominated American animator, cartoonist, and filmmaker. Widely celebrated as the “King of Indie Animation,” he is globally recognized for his surreal, darkly humorous, and entirely hand-crafted visual style. Throughout his career, Plympton has stood as a pioneer of creative independence, notably becoming one of the only modern animators to personally hand-draw every single frame of his feature-length films. Before his animation career took off in the 1980s, he spent 15 years as a successful political cartoonist and illustrator for major publications like The New York Times, Vogue, and Playboy. He transitioned into filmmaking with spectacular results, earning his first Oscar nomination for the short film Your Face in 1987, followed by a second nomination for Guard Dog in 2004. Over his prolific career, he has directed over 60 shorts and 11 acclaimed animated features, including The Tune, Cheatin’, and his Western-inspired epic Slide. His cultural impact extends well beyond indie cinema; he has directed iconic music videos for artists like Kanye West and Weird Al Yankovic, and has animated eight opening “couch gags” for FOX’s The Simpsons.

Animaze is thrilled to welcome the godfather of independent animation back to the Montréal International Animation Film Festival. Returning as a prominent guest and jury member, Bill will headline the festival’s newly expanded Masterclass Program. His live, immersive session functions as both a creative workshop and an industry seminar,designed for both emerging and established professionals. During the event, Bill will pull back the curtain on his signature pencil-and-paper drawing techniques and share his invaluable, real-world strategies for building a profitable, completely independent creative career.

 

Iona Pelovska

Iona Pelovska est une artiste et cinéaste fascinée par la capacité humaine à imaginer des réalités. Formée aux arts visuels et à la production cinématographique, elle est titulaire d’un doctorat en communication et culture, dans le cadre duquel ses recherches ont porté sur les dimensions cognitives de l’image animée.

Son travail explore la perception, le rêve et l’imbrication de la technologie dans l’expérience humaine, en utilisant la lumière et le temps comme principaux matériaux artistiques. Présentés dans des festivals, des contextes universitaires et des espaces d’art à l’échelle internationale, ses films et ses installations ouvrent la voie à de nouvelles formes cinématographiques tout en abordant des questions plus larges liées au langage, à la technologie et à l’incarnation.