<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>March 24-26, 2022</p>

Toronto Animation Film Festival

<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>March 24-27, 2021</p>

<h3>Where</h3><p>Hot Docs Cinema | Toronto, Canada | 506 Bloor Street West</p><h3>When</h3><p>Monday April 25th</p>

<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>November 11-13, 2021</p>

Toronto Animation Industry Conference

<h3>Where</h3><p>Online</p><h3>When</h3><p>November 18-22, 2020<span class="ql-cursor">﻿</span></p>

<h3>Where</h3><p>Corus Quay, Toronto, Canada, 25 Dockside Dr.</p><h3>When</h3><p>Saturday to Sunday, November 2-3, 2019</p>

Toronto Animation / VFX Job Fair

TAAFI News

<p>Working in the industry since 2003, Jessica had her start in animation at Spumco working on The New Ren and Stimpy. From there she ventured to the East Coast and worked with Collideascope and Copernicus on various projects, from music videos to television series. Soon after she created her own short film entitled "I Like Pandas" This earned Jessica the "Frederator Flash Film of the Year Award". Fuel Industries, an adver-gaming agency, hired Jess in 2005. She art directed many projects there and worked with clients such as Kraft Foods, Johnson&amp;Johnson, and McDonald's, creating beautiful immersive online gaming. The popularity of her short film earned her notice from WB. She was approached by them to re-design the Looney Tunes, and from there went on to direct the "Merrie Melodies" part of the show. She also re-imagined Bugs and the gang again for the Wabbit series, which evolved into "The New Looney Tunes Show". Jessica went on to work on many of the WB legacy properties. One DC Nation Short, featuring Shazam, entitled "WISDOM" that she produced was nominated for an Emmy. She also produced the series Bunnicula for Cartoon Network International. Today Nickelodeon is her new home and she is currently the Supervising Director on Loud House.</p>

Jessica Borutski

<p>JUSTIN SKLAR (Head of Animation) joined Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2011 after graduating from Ringling College of Art and Design with a degree in animation.</p><p>During his junior year at Ringling, he came to Burbank, California, to work as a summer animation trainee at Disney Animation, where he and his fellow trainees completed a short film called “Chalk.” Born in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in nearby Owings Mills, Sklar went to George Washington Carver Center for Arts and Technology, a magnet school for gifted and talented students, where he took an intensive art program. Around that time, several of his friends were experimenting with a 3D computer graphics software toolkit called Blender. Driven by an intense desire to understand how the program worked, he became obsessed with it and mastered it. During that time, he also honed his artistic side by drawing massive super realistic charcoal drawings. His love of challenges and puzzle solving led him to pursue a career in animation because he found it hard and interesting.</p><p>Hired by Disney Animation as a trainee in 2011, he got his first feature film experience animating crowds for “Wreck-It Ralph.” He was promoted to an animator on “Frozen” and went on to other assignments on “Big Hero 6,” “Zootopia” and “Moana.” In his role as supervising animator on “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” Sklar helped to guide the character of Ralph, and played a key role in creating the “Ralphzilla” character (who was nominated for a VES Award). For “Frozen 2” he worked with the team on the characters of Kristoff and Matthias and on “Raya and the Last Dragon” he supervised the character of Namaari. He observes, “the cool thing about animation is that each movie is like a new puzzle to figure out. It’s changing all the time, and no matter what you’ve done, there’s always something new to learn.”</p>

<p>Hired by Disney Animation as a trainee in 2011, he got his first feature film experience animating crowds for “Wreck-It Ralph.” He was promoted to an animator on “Frozen” and went on to other assignments on “Big Hero 6,” “Zootopia” and “Moana.” In his role as supervising animator on “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” Sklar helped to guide the character of Ralph, and played a key role in creating the “Ralphzilla” character (who was nominated for a VES Award). For “Frozen 2” he worked with the team on the characters of Kristoff and Matthias and on “Raya and the Last Dragon” he supervised the character of Namaari. He observes, “the cool thing about animation is that each movie is like a new puzzle to figure out. It’s changing all the time, and no matter what you’ve done, there’s always something new to learn.”</p>

Justin Sklar

<p>Watch the two finalists of TAAFI's Big Pitch go head to head in front of three Industry judges. The winner takes it all in this exciting live pitching event (plus a cash prize!). If you want to have a shot, submit your pitch in the link on our Industry home page. Or email <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:bigpitch@taafi.com">bigpitch@taafi.com</a></p><p style="text-align: start">The Big Pitch is brought to you by WildBrain.</p>

<p>Watch the two finalists of TAAFI's Big Pitch go head to head in front of three Industry judges. The winner takes it all in this exciting live pitching event (plus a cash prize!). If you want to have a shot, submit your pitch in the link on our Industry home page. Or email <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:bigpitch@taafi.com">bigpitch@taafi.com</a></p><p style="text-align: start">The Big Pitch is brought to you by WildBrain. </p>

Ben McEvoy

The Big Pitch presented by WildBrain

Athena Georgaklis

James R. Backshall

Lorna Withrington

Rajan Kapila

WildBrain 

<p>James is an Emmy-nominated Canadian screenwriter and IP development specialist with over 30 years experience, and 300 + produced broadcast credits writing for hit shows such as PAW Patrol and Max &amp; Ruby. James has also developed courses and mentored new talent at local colleges, helping to foster the next generation of animation excellence in Canada - all for the love of cartoons!</p>