American legend Joe Barbera, with is partner William Hanna, has created anextraordinarily varied and inventive collection of world-famous characters during a nearly 60 years history of working together which is unrivaled in the world animation. In 1960 the creation of television's first animated family sit-com " The Flintstones" became a hit with crities and viewers alike. A host of successful Hanna-Barbera series followed, including "The Jetsons", "Topcat", "Scooby Doo" and many others. Now in his eighties Joe Barbera continues to bring his unique touch to a variety of projects such as an innovative world premier cartoons project, just undertaken by the Hanna-Barbera studios: a series of 48 seven-minute cartoon shorts.

Giampaolo Sodano (President)

A company director and professional journalist, was born in Rome in 1942. He entered the RAI in 1966 after being selected to work as a programme supervisor.
In 1969 he started working as a production organizer and screenplay writer. He then became the Head of light entertainment programmes. In 1979 he was nominated a Company Director.
In July 1987 he was promoted to the position of Vice President and Managing Director of SIPRA, the RAI's advertising agency.
From May 1989 to October 1993 he was the Director of RAIDUE.
On the 17th of February 1994 he was nominated General Manager of SACIS, a RAI group company dealing with the commercialization of audio-visual products and the editing and control of publicity.
Since the 23th of December 1994 he has also been President of SACIS. Since February 1995 he has been the Director of the RAI's Acquisition of Productions and Co-productions sector (APC).
He was elected to the Italian Parliament where he was a member of the Permanent Commission for Telecommunications and the Parliamentary Supervisory Commission for RAI TV.
He has collaborated with specialist newspapers and magazines as a literary and cinema critic and has had various pamphlets and essays published. (These include: Le cose possibili, Le Coccarde Verdemare and Nascita di Venere).

Alfio Bastiancich (Artistic Director)

A graduate in the History of Cinema, he has specialized in the cinema of animation since 1980. He was the main editor of the Asifa's international magazine "Animafilm" from 1983 to1988, and has published various books on animation as well as dozens of articles and papers. Since 1988 he has taught the history of the cinema of animation at the Experimental Centre of Cinematography in Rome, and for over ten years he has attended all the major International Festivals and Markets often as an advisor, selctor or on a Jury. He has supervised dozens of exhibition and since 1985 has been director of the Festival of Treviso. He has been the executive producer of various television programmes for the Rai and Fininvest. Since 1982 he has bee the Secretary General of Asifa-Italia (The Italian Association of Animated Film), representing Italian animation at home and abroad. He is a founding member and is an Administrative Advisor of Cartoon Media, the project for the development of animation in Europe, closely following the commercial, technological and creative development of the sector. In the past five years he has been concerned above all with aspects of production and distribution, studying and analysing the international market.

Bruno Bozzetto

The best Known Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto made his first animated short film in 1958 when he was 20 years old. In 1960 he founded his own Company, Bruno Bozzetto Film, which soon became one of the most important production Companies in Italy, producing commercials and animation on commission. Bruno Bozzetto's best known character is Mister Rossi who appears in eight short films and three feature films. Bozzetto produced three animated feature films: "West and Soda" in 1965, "Vip my brother superman" in 1968, and "Allegro ma non troppo" in 1976. He also produced 23 animated short films which made him famous all over the world and for which he received many awards including the Golden Bear of the Berlin Film Festival for "Mister Tao" in 1990 and an Oscar nomination fro "Cavallette" in 1991. He has just completed production of a short film "Help?" for Hanna-Barbera and at present is working, in co-production with RAI, on a pilot for the series "Spaghetti Family".

Andy Heyward

After graduating from Ucla in 1975 Heyward worked for Hanna-Barbera productions as a writer and story editor and in 1980 he moved to France to join Dic Audiovisual, a production company specializing in animation for children. Here he developed shows such as "Inspectors Gadget" for foreign markets. In 1982 he returned to Los Angeles to produce and sell products in the American market as President of Dic Enterprises Inc. Under his leadership Dic produced over 1500 half hours of family programming in four years. He headed Dic Animation City Inc. from 1986 to 1993 and is now the President and Chief Executive Officer of Dci Entertainment L.P. which has a major role internationally.

Jean-François Laguionie

Born a Besançon in 1939 he studied graphics and worked in theatre. At Annecy he discovered animation through meeting Paul Grimault, the great cartoonist, with whom he developed a technique of animation with pieces of paper. His first film "La demoiselle et le violoncelliste" won the Grand Prix at the Festival of Annecy on 1965. Fifteen years later he was awarded the Palm d'Or at Cannes for "La traversée de l'Atlantique à la rame". In 1979 Laguionie moved into an old factory at Saint-Laurent-Le-Minier and created La Fabrique, an animation studio which has produced a great variety of short films d'Auteur, as well as feature-lenght films ("Gwen, le livre de sable" in 1984), and high-quality series for television. An important group of artist has formed around Laguionie, ever ready to develop new projects and welcome young artists who wish to learn the art of animation.

Guido Manuli

He has been dubbed "The Italian Tex Avery". From 1960 to 1978 he was Bruno Bozzetto's collaborator, partecipating, as animator, screenplay-writer or co-director, in the creation of almost all the Milanese cartoonist's films. In 1979, having left Bozzetto he began making televized opening sequences, videoclips and publicity films, without neglecting his own creations (he has made around 15 films since 1973), as well as feature-lenght films ("Volere Volare" with Maurizio Nichetti in 1990, "L'eroe dei due mondi" in 1994, and "Who's Afraid?", which is still in production), and series ("Mr Hiccup", "The Animal's Island and "Gno Gno", at present in production).

Jimmy Murakami

Jimmy Teru Murakami was born in San José in California in 1933. After studying at Los Angeles he entered U.P.A. Pictures. In 1960 he left the United States and worked in various countries: in Japan for Toei, in France, Italy, the Netherlands and in Great Britain from 1961 to 1964, working with George Dunning in TV Cartoon at London. IN 1965, again in California, he joined up with Fred Wolf to found Murakami-Wolf and in 1972 he moved to Ireland where he set up his own production company. In 1987 he made the feature-lenght film "When the Wind Blows". The film attempted to bring also an adult audinece to the world of animation, and was fully in line with the commitment he has always maintained, in his own artistic and imaginative creations, and in his activity as a producer and promoter of a European industry of high-quality animation.

Carlo Rambaldi

After starting his cinematographic career in Cinecittà in Rome Rambaldi turned his talent to the service of the great American cinema. The first important film upon which he worked was the remake of "King Kong" in 1976 and this was followed by many others such as "Alien", in which he collaborated to invent a fearsome monster. But his most well-know creations were born from the collaboration with Steven Spielberg, first of all with a strange being which descends from a spaceship in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), and then with the clumsy but loveable visitor from another planet "ET" (1982). He has worked to bring to life all the bizarre and fantastic animal and human variations that American cinema has dreamed up, winning himself three Oscar in the process.

Isao Takahata

Isao Takahata began working with Toei Animation, collaborating on the screenplays for various animated series. His first original series were "Horus the Son of the Sun" and "Heidi". After having left Toei he made a highly successful musical film: "Goshu Plays the Violin" in 1982 and in 1984 he set up the Ghibli Studio with his friend Miyazaki. Together they have created and produced a series of masterpieces of animation. Takahata has directed three other feature lenght films: "Tombstones for Fireflies" in 1988, "Only Yesterday" in 1991 and "Pompoko" in 1994 which won the prize for the Best Feature lenght animation Film at Annecy International Animatio Festival in 1995, and was the official nominee representing Japan for the Oscars in 1995.

Alexander Trauttmansdorff Alexander Trauttmansdorff graduated from school in 1980 and studied philosophy, painting and economics in Vienna, munich and Innsbruck. After receiving a Master's degree in 1988 he worked as assistant to the Managing Director of the KirchGroup in Munich. He was promoted to the position of Head of Programming Coordination in 1991, and at the end in 1993 he took over the marketing department. In January 1994 he became Director of the Junior department with the responsability for the KirchGroup's children's programming.