Dr. Jan Pinkava
Head of Animationsinstitut @ Animationsinstitut Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
Jan Pinkava (CZ/UK/US/DE) has worked in animation storytelling for over thirty years.
He began his thirteen year career at Pixar directing award-winning commercials and worked in story and animation on the studio’s early feature films. He wrote and directed 1997 Oscar-winning short film Geri’s Game and was the creator and co-director of Pixar’s Oscar-winning 2007 feature Ratatouille.
At Google, he was co-founder and Creative Director of the renowned Google Spotlight Stories project; working with leading technologists, artists and directors to create new forms of interactive storytelling for film, mobile and VR. The work won many prizes, including the ASIFA Ub Iwerks award for technical advancement in the art of animation, the first Emmy for outstanding innovation in interactive storytelling, and an Oscar nomination.
In June of 2023 Jan became Director of the Animationsinstitut Filmakadmie Baden-Württemberg, one of Europe’s leading schools for Animation, VFX and Interactive Media. He is learning German. Slowly.