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Sophie Olga de Jong and Sytske Kok

Sophie Olga de Jong grew up in the small village of Bergen in the Netherlands. Being the daughter of an illustrator and having ambition to become a comic artist, she started drawing at an early age yet had trouble repeating the same characters. Whilst attending St Joost Art School, Sophie became quite fond of animation, and had no trouble drawing the same character 24 times for every second of a film. She directed her first hand-drawn film, FOR THE TIME BEING, co-directed the short animation film, CYCLE, and has worked on projects for TV shows, music videos, and art animations for museums and theaters.

Sytske Kok studied writing and directing at the Netherlands Film Academy and the Binger Filmlab. She received awards in international film festivals, namely for the short film she directed, CHINESE WALL, which won the Clermont-Ferrand and Interfilm Berlin; TUNNEL VISION, the TV-film she wrote; and CYCLE, the short animation film she wrote and co-directed. Besides writing, Sytske also teaches scriptwriting at the Amsterdam Film School and at St Joost Academy’s Animation Department. She is board treasurer at the Dutch Writers Guild and was a jury member of the Uppsala Short Film Festival and chair of the jury for the Louis Hartlooper award.