Festival director and Co-founder
Vicky Chen
Vicky Chen is the co-founder and festival director of Cartoons Underground, and she is what Singaporeans would call a chili padi – a tiny, fiery pepper that packs a real punch. At just over five feet tall Vicky has lived and worked in 4 countries across Europe and Asia, crossed the arctic circle at 23, started an AI business, and contiues to champion an award-winning female empowerment non-profit organisation, SheSays Singapore. In her day job, Vicky works in adtech acrosss several APAC markets. As a big fan of animation and cartoons, Vicky saw the gap in the industry that had an unbalanced focus toward animated films outside of Asia. At 21 years old, she partnered with Patrick Smith and founded Cartoons Underground, to bring short animated films from all around the world to Asia, and to showcase young emerging talents from SEA to the rest of the world!
Co-Founder
Patrick Smith
Patrick Smith is known for his metaphorical hand drawn short films, as well as his experimental stop motion films. His formative years were spent as a storyboard artist for Walt Disney, and animation director for MTV. Smith is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the New York Foundation of the Arts.
Programme Director | Education Partnership Lead
Jerrold Chong
Jerrold Chong is an animation filmmaker/director whose films have screened at numerous international film festivals, including Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Busan International Film Festival, Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF). His recent animated short film, Piece of Meat, premiered at the 2019 Cannes Director’s Fortnight and was selected at the 2019 Annecy International Animation Festival, on top of various other international film festivals. His films “Automatonomy” and “What Has To Be” have also won the Best Animation Award at the National Youth Film Awards Open Category consecutively for the last 2 years. He is the co-founder of local animation studio Finding Pictures.
Festival producer
Esther Lussier
Esther is a project manager, video producer, and a 'let's get sh*t done' kind of person. Born in Canada, raised in HK, she worked in production in Sydney, London and then Singapore, founding and managing production companies. She has a love for storytelling and collaborating with talented teams to bring a common creative vision to life. With a soft spot for animation production, she joined the Cartoons Underground team in 2019 to manage the social channels and provide project management support for the production of the festival.
Head of Design | Industry Lead
Jia Lee
Jia Lee is a triple threat – a designer, illustrator, and animator who dabbles in the whimsical. Cheerful and imaginative, her work strikes a quirky balance between digital and analogue methods. She’s worked with various commercial and independent clients, including Apple, National Gallery Singapore, Ethos Books, Nutella. In 2020, she created the key art and branding for the 2020 Singapore International Film Festival, and the key illustration and branding for Busan-nominated feature film Tiong Bahru Social Club. Since 2016, Jia has been leading the design strategy for Cartoons Underground, including rebranding it with its current brand identity. She is a founding partner of the Cannes-nominated independent animation studio, Finding Pictures.
Partner
Jaymi McManus
Jaymi McManus is the founder and director of Mischief Makers, proud production partner to Cartoons Underground since 2016. Orginally from the UK, Jaymi has lived and worked in Singapore for over 16 years and started Mischief Makers in 2015 as an experiential design and production lab. A passionate live visual artist and all-round tinkerer, Jaymi has creatively directed and produced projects with multiple instituional, corporate and not-for-profit organisations and is a long time advocate of the local Singapore night-life and entertainment scene. Noteworthy projects achieved by Jaymi and his collaborators include SOLIS at Singapore Night Festival, Strawberry Space with Fat Fish Famillia, ZoukOut and Cartoons Underground.
video content & grant lead | programme team
Kimberly Wee
Kimberly is a creative based in Singapore.
Currently, she works as a systems analyst and volunteers at a mycological research lab as a researcher and a designer where she explores mushrooms as a medium of design.
Volunteer lead | programme & website content team
Wai Zi Ying
Zi Ying has worked on a variety of short film projects with her friends, which has brought much laughter and colour to her life. Now, she creates digital content on biodiversity and nature conservation. She hopes to continue sharing compelling stories with animation and film lovers through Cartoons Underground, and write more stories of her own.
Programme and website content team
Simone Tam
As a literature graduate with a background in theatre, Simone is passionate about storytelling as a form of sense-making. Her experiences span across literary forms, stage representations, and on-screen narratives – with a recent foray into animation screenwriting. Back in Yale-NUS, Simone co-founded the college’s film society and worked professionally alongside NUS Museum doing outreach and programming. She joined Cartoons Underground in 2022 and hopes to continue to contribute to the growing local animation space.