Google India country head and VP Sanjay Gupta will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural session of Animation Masters Summit 2022 to begin on Monday, 23 May. Organised by global kids and family entertainment major Toonz Media Group, the five-day virtual Summit will feature sessions by a galaxy of stalwarts from diverse fields of media and entertainment across the world.
Animation Masters Summit is a not-for-profit public event organised by Toonz annually that seeks to bring together the greatest minds in the field of media and entertainment and provide a platform for youngsters and upcoming artists to interact and learn from them. This year’s master line-up includes Belgian animation director-producer Paul Demeyer who has worked on shows like Mission Force One, The Rocketeer and the Rugrats series; Emmy Award-winning composer Wendell Hanes best known for supervising the music for the Netflix sitcom Family Reunion and Television Academy Honors Award winning HBO series Black and Missing; Ogilvy India chief creative officer Sukesh Nayak; GuardianLink co-founder and CTO Arjun Reddy and Ravishankar Venkateswaran, maker of the first ever Sanskrit animation feature Punyakoti.
Award-winning painter, cartoonist, author, playwright and environmental activist Aabid Surti, 87, will be honoured with the Legend of Indian Animation Award at the inaugural session of the Summit on 23 May. Meanwhile, AVGC industry leader and Technicolor Creative Studios country head Biren Ghose will be bestowed with the Special Contribution to the Indian Animation Industry Award. Toonz Media Group CEO P. Jayakumar and FICCI AVGC Forum chairman Ashish Kulkarni will also speak at the inaugural session.
The theme for this edition of Animation Masters Summit is Creativity for Good. The summit will also have two panel discussions. The first one, centred around the Summit theme, will be moderated by Ghose and will include as panellists renowned animation and ad film-maker Kireet Khurana and Firdaus Kharas, chairman of Chocolate Moose Media. The second panel will focus on creating joy for kids through the medium of animation. This will be moderated by Toonz president of distribution and feature films division Bruno Zarka. The speakers at this panel are content creator, development consultant and producer Rich Magallanes and Pinnacle Peak Pictures VP Ron Gell.
The five-day event will be held over the Zoom platform and will be accessible to delegates from around the world, who can join the session by registering for free on the Summit website.