News | April 09, 2026
New Prominent Speakers -
KPop Demon Hunters, Aardman and AI
HEY EVERYONE,
Four weeks to go until FMX 2026, we have plenty of exciting confirmations to share.
The animated movie "KPop Demon Hunters" was a huge global hit. And "Zoomania 2" may be the funniest Disney movie in years. FMX offers deep dives into the making of both in the track Feature Animation with Adam Sarophim (Sony Pictures Imageworks) and Jacob Frey (Disney Animation Studios). In addition, FMX will feature two ambitious animation projects with strong European contributions: "The Last Whale Singer" and "Zako".
Then there are four of the top-notch people in the world discussing the state of Artificial Intelligence in the FMX track of the same name: Ben Grossman (Magnopus), Mohsen Mousavi (Eyeline Studios) and Hao Li (Pinscreen) will individually present their insights, then Ben and Mohsen go on a panel with Mike Seymour, himself a leading expert in machine learning.
We're also proud to announce a lineup of excellent speakers in the Cinematography track, including longtime Aardman cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett and Victor Perez (VFX Supervisor & Researcher).
Feature Animation
Three female pop stars try to save the world: "KPop Demon Hunters". © Sony Pictures Imageworks "KPop Demon Hunters" & "GOAT": Animating Performances
This presentation of Supervising Animator Adam Sarophim explores how Sony Pictures Imageworks brings animated characters to life through performance-driven animation. Focusing on "KPop Demon Hunters" and "GOAT", it highlights how animators craft emotion, personality, and audience connection through movement, timing, and subtle detail.
Adam previously served as supervisor on the Academy Award®-winning "Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse" and was a lead animator on "The Mitchells vs. the Machines", contributing to the film’s distinctive visual style and character performances.
Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps are back in action in "Zoomania 2". © Disney Animation Studios The Animation of "Zoomania 2"
Join Animator Jacob Frey as he shares the exciting and innovative collaboration between art and technology at the center of Walt Disney Animation Studios' filmmaking process and latest feature, "Zoomania 2".
Jacob is an Alumnus of the Animationsinstitut of Filmakademie Baden-WĂĽrttemberg, the organizers of FMX. Welcome home, Jacob!
Trash Island: Building a CG Wonderland from Garbage -
A Procedural Real-Time Pipeline for "The Last Whale Singer"
How do you build a labyrinth from a million pieces of floating garbage while keeping two studios on opposite ends of Europe in sync?
Jan Hofmann, CG Supervisor & Unreal Engine Expert at Telescope Animation, and Amir Ashkezari, FX Supervisor & Technical Director at PFX, break down the procedural pipeline behind Trash Island: Houdini-generated assets flowing via USD into both real-time Unreal and traditional 3ds Max/V-Ray workflows, connected by custom tools that made daily cross-pipeline collaboration possible.
A teenage humpback whale saves the day: scene from "The Last Whalesinger". © Little Dream Pictures 
The story of an Armenian Painter in the turbulences of World War II and the Soviet Union: "Zallo". © OnOff Studio Zako (based on true story)
This presentation by director Tigran Arakelyan (OnOff Studio) explores how art and technology can be balanced in modern animation production. It demonstrates how VR animation can be used as a core creative tool for sketching, staging, and animating directly in 3D space.
The talk highlights how intuitive, artist-driven workflows can coexist with technically complex pipelines, enabling expressive and hand-crafted visual styles. Special focus is given to integrating VR animation into a feature film production pipeline, showing practical methods for combining creativity and technical efficiency.
The session on Pixar's "Hoppers" we announced earlier is also part of the track Feature Animation, curated by FMX.
Artificial Intelligence
The End of the Beginning: AI and the Next Act for VFX
This FMX track will bring together some of the industry’s most respected voices to explore not just what AI can do, but what it should do within modern production. Framed around the idea of how we keep the human artist in the loop while harnessing the power of a very fastly evolving technology, the track will focus on how artists, supervisors and technologists can combine emerging AI systems with traditional VFX craft, rather than viewing them as opposing forces.
The sessions will feature Oscar-winning VFX supervisor and producer Ben Grossmann (Magnopus), whose work spans projects such as "The Lion King" and the immersive experience in Las Vegas with "The Wizard of Oz at Sphere". Ben brings a pragmatic understanding of where AI genuinely adds value in large-scale productions, and where human judgement, design and storytelling remain essential.
Joining the track is Emmy and VES award-winning supervisor and Senior Director of EYELINE’s Visual Pioneering, Mohsen Mousavi. His decades-long work in advanced visual effects and filmmaking intersects with cutting-edge machine learning and generative AI as he leads the studio’s generative production efforts.
Also presenting is Hao Li, founder of Pinscreen and one of the leading figures in computer vision and facial performance technology, whose work bridges academic research, visual effects innovation and entrepreneurship. He most recently completed AI work on Amazon’s “Fallout”, Season 2.
Curated by Mike Seymour (Co-Founder FXGuide), himself an AI researcher from Sydney, the track will examine how the industry can move beyond hype and fear, and instead focus on building practical, artist-driven workflows for the next era of VFX.
Cinematography
Dave Alex Riddett, master of stop motion camera. © Aardman Animation
Work Aard Play Aard
Award-winning Cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett BSC will take the audience behind the scenes of 40 years cinematography at Aardman, revealing the practical skills and intricate understanding that a cinematographer requires to bring magic to the world of Stop Frame Storytelling.
GLASS: Capturing the Lens Look for Photorealistic VFX
Photorealism in visual effects does not emerge from perfect imagery, but from the subtle imperfections of real lenses. Every lens carries a unique optical fingerprint: distortion, chromatic aberration, field curvature, vignetting, iris behaviour, micro-contrast, and so much more; all elements sculpt the emotional language of cinematography.
In this presentation, VFX Supervisor Victor Perez explores how these characteristics can be analysed, measured, and reconstructed inside VFX pipelines to seamlessly integrate CGI with live-action photography. Through practical examples and production insights, he demonstrates how understanding the physics and personality of lenses allows digital imagery to inherit the visual identity of the camera that captured the scene.
The FMX track Cinematography is curated by Sara Coppola-Nicholson, Director of Research and Education at Cooke Optics.
Silver Partner: AWS Visual Computing
AWS Visual Computing empowers content creators worldwide with cloud-based solutions for visual effects, animation, and 3D content production. From independent studios to global entertainment leaders, AWS provides scalable rendering, virtual workstations, and high-performance storage optimized for media workflows. AWS Deadline Cloud, our fully managed render management service, enables studios to accelerate production while reducing infrastructure costs.
AWS at FMX 2026
The AI-Enabled Studio: Practical Tools for Accelerating Your Pipeline. AWS brings together customers and partners to share real-world AI and cloud transformation experiences. Outpost VFX, Untold Studios, Mosaic Studios, Engine Lab, and Oehmen Digital demonstrate how generative AI, agentic systems, and cloud-native infrastructure are reshaping VFX production. From AI in production to launching studios in weeks, these sessions deliver actionable insights for the future of content creation.
Silver Partner: Foundry
Foundry has a 30-year heritage in developing creative software for the Media and Entertainment industry. Its portfolio of award-winning products solves complex visualization challenges to turn incredible ideas into reality.
Working with creative leaders around the globe, Foundry products are used to create breathtaking visual effects and animation and have been integral in the making of every VFX Academy Award-winning film since 2007.
Foundry at FMX 2026
Don’t miss your chance to see fascinating showcases of compositing, lighting, look development and texturing from global VFX and animation powerhouses like ILM, RISE FX, Outpost VFX, and Mikros.
Join us at Raum Mannheim for an immersive day of exclusive insights into the making of projects including "Fallout Season 2", Netflix’s "The Dinosaurs", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2 – Lost in New Jersey, plus a talk from award-winning Director and VFX Supervisor Hugo Guerra.
Watch the Foundry showreel here.
Are you interested in becoming part of the FMX Forum? Check out the FMX Partner Opportunities!
FMX 2026: On Site May 5-7 | Online & On Campus May 8 | On Demand May 9-June 9