Christina Caspers-Roemer, Managing Director, TRIXTER GmbH

Christina works as General Manager at TRIXTER. TRIXTER is one of the leading VFX studios in Europe. With her team, Christina works primarily for international clients, as well as large scale streaming vendors. In her position, Christina is responsible for the day-to-day business across all ongoing and potential new productions from acquisition to final delivery. As technology in the film and especially post-production industry continues to evolve at an ever increasing speed, and audience watching habits change as well, the use of the most current technology is absolutely essential in order to be at the highest industry standard not only budget-wise but creatively as well. At TRIXTER, Christina and her team are evaluating these latest technologies and their tailored application to each project. 

Before coming back to TRIXTER, Christina was Managing Director at Dark Bay – Europe’s largest virtual production stage. In this role, she oversaw the daily productions and supported and consulted shows from the scriptwriting process to the final image in all virtual production-related topics. The volume, one of the world’s largest LED-installations, was used, among others, for the filming of the Netflix series “1899”.

With a background in VFX and XR, she previously also worked on movies like “The Marvels”, “I am Groot, “Family Plan”, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, “Black Widow”, “Loki Season 1 +2” and “Foundation S:2”, just to name a few.

In addition to her work at TRIXTER, Christina is co-founder of IIM (Institute of Immersive Media), an NGO that brings together the creative and technical departments of film shooting, pre- and post-production in workshops and at film festivals.

Kim Davidson, President of SideFX and VES Board Chair

Kim Davidson is the President and CEO of SideFX^®, a company he co-founded in 1987. SideFX is a world-leading innovator of advanced 3D animation and special effects Houdini^® software.

Davidson has received three Scientific and Technical Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2018, he accepted on behalf of SideFX, the Academy Award of Merit for the creation and development of Houdini. In 2015, Davidson was co-recipient of the Canadian Digital Media Pioneer Award, and in 2019 he and other SideFX team members accepted a Technology and Engineering Emmy award in the Cost-Effective Crowd Simulation Tools category.  Davidson was an EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 Ontario Winner; received the J. Wesley Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation from the University of Waterloo; and is a member of Sheridan College Computer Animation PAC (Program Advisory Committee).

Davidson was the first Chair of the VES Toronto Section and has served on the Toronto Section board for eight years. He has served on the global VES Board of Directors for seven years, on the Membership Committee for seven years, as well as a number of VES ad hoc committees. Davidson has also been a VES mentor and played an active role in the Society’s recent strategic planning process on its Impact & Visibility and Globalization sub-committees.

Heike Kluger, VFX Supervisor

Heike is a VFX Supervisor with over 10 years of experience in the visual effects industry.

Throughout her career, she has worked as an experienced compositor and team leader, contributing to major productions for renowned studios such as RodeoFX, ILP, Cinesite and more. Her work has contributed to a number of award-winning shows like Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, The Boys, and many others.

In her current role as a VFX Supervisor on production site, Heike focuses on bridging the gap between film production and VFX Vendors, with a particular emphasis on the DACH region.

Esther Trilsch, Sr. Character TD, SideFX

Esther Trilsch is a Senior Character TD at SideFX. She started her career as a character TD apprentice at Walt Disney Animation Studios working on Zootopia, and worked at RiseFX as a Character Supervisor and Pipeline TD. Combining her focus for both the creative side of anatomy and deformation, as well as the technical side of RnD, she found her sweet spot in the building of innovative structures and tools for character workflows.