Fest Can Dance Panel

Mark Brennan is a filmmaker based in the UK, working on short films since 2014. 

After successfully taking his first short film, Tea For Two, on to the film festival circuit, he later co-founded the Exit 6 Film Festival in 2015. This year, Exit 6 celebrates its 10th anniversary, having since become a BIFA-qualifying festival in 2023 and a mainstay on the Top 100 Best Reviewed Festivals list on FilmFreeway. 

He is also a Festival Strategist & Liaison at the internationally renowned Festival Formula, an agency specialising in festival strategy for short films, for whom he has previously represented at festivals such as Clermont Ferrand, HollyShorts, Indy Shorts, Aesthetica, Bolton International Film Festival, and IN THE PALACE Short Film Festival.

Michael Hannigan has been involved in film exhibition throughout his career. For 24 years he was Director of Cork International Film Festival. He was founding Cinemas Director of the Irish Film Center. In 1986 he founded the Triskel Film Club and in 1996 established the Kino Art House Cinema. In 2025, as part of ‘Cork Capital of Culture’ he organised an International Short Film Symposium. 

He has served on the boards of Irish Screen, the Irish Film Institute and the Federation of Irish Film Societies.

In 2013 he co-founded the IndieCork Film Festival, Ireland’s largest festival for short films, of which he’s currently Festival Co-Director.

Katarzyna Surmacz – Director of the Etiuda&Anima International Film Festival (Krakow, Poland). A graduate of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In 2004–2006 she was the director of the Rotunda Film Discussion Club and was responsible for programming the Cinema's film repertoire. Since 2002 she has been working on the organization of  Etiuda&Anima International Film Festival and other cultural and film events. She is currently the Festival Director. Curator of many film projects on a national scale (in 2009-2013 Krakow Summer Animation Days, animation workshops, nationwide animation screenings) and internationally. 

She has been the curator of the "Polish School of Animation" project since 2011 - the project has been presented in 42 countries in Europe, North, South and Central America and Asia, including Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Japan, China and France.

For two years she has been the programmer of the CREATIVE LAB E&A project dedicated to animation, virtual reality and various arts from the borderland.

Philip Ilson is the Artistic Director of the London Short Film Festival, which he co-founded in 2004, after running the Halloween Society film club for 10 years previously since 1994. 

He was also the short film programmer for the BFI London Film Festival between 2006 and 2022, and is currently short film programmer at the Dinard British & Irish Film Festival in France. 

He has previously worked as a programmer at the East End Film Festival (London), Cork Film Festival (Ireland), the Branchage Festival (Jersey), Latitude music festival, and at Curzon Soho Cinema.

Per Fikse (b. 1965, Norway) is the Director of Minimalen Short Film Festival in Trondheim, Norway, from 1999 to date, a festival he has programmed for since 1994. The festival had its 37th edition in January, screening 250 films over six days, with competition categories for International, Nordic, Dance film, Student, and One-minute-films.

Per Fikse has made a few shorts and contributed with articles on film published in Norwegian and international media, most prominently the peer reviewed academic journal Short Film Studies from IntellectBooks – for instance on the specificity of short fiction film. Each year he serves in a number of film festival juries, among others Tampere Filmfestival (Finland), Uppsala Short Film Festival (Sweden), Jaffa Cinema Festival (Sri Lanka), Hamburg Intl. Short Film Festival (Germany), Kiev Intl. Short Film Festival (Ukraine), Riga Intl. Film Festival (Latvia), Teheran Intl. Short Film Festival (Iran) and Las Palmas Film Festival (Spain).

Per Fikse holds a Master of Management degree from NTNU, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and along with the festival management also works as a Software Development Manager in the private sector.