From ghost stories and family curses to intergalactic misfits and urban rabbits, WIA’s 2025 animation creators’ cohort features 5 bold new projects from women across the globe, each exploring identity, legacy, and self-discovery in imaginative, culturally rich worlds.
Exploring everything from intergalactic misfits to South Asian folklore and post-colonial trauma, the latest cohort of the Stories x Women program presents vibrant, genre-spanning animated works rooted in personal histories and global perspectives.Alien geniuses, cozy and kid-friendly ghost stories, family curses, horror anthologies, and small rabbits making their way in a big city – the projects selected for this year’s Stories x Women program are as unique as they are promising.
Every year, Women in Animation (WIA) selects a handful of creators and their projects, from hundreds of applications around the world, for their Stories x Women program, run in collaboration with FIAPF and sponsored by The Walt Disney Company and UNESCO.Dedicated to increasing the diversity of voices in animation on a global scale, Stories x Women is one of the few pitch programs to send teams to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, offering mentorship and coaching and empowering women and nonbinary animators from emerging animation markets across Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America.This year’s cohort includes the following animated projects: Idil Sukan’s Yusra Shahid’s Matisse Gonzalez Jordan’s Renee van Reenen and Tshepo Moche’s Bruna Capozzoli and Sara Tenti’s Following their pitches at Annecy, AWN sat down to chat with the five women-led teams selected to chat about their project’s origins, animation style choices and future plans now that their presentations have been made. For most of her life, Idil Sukan felt like she didn’t quite fit in anywhere, struggling to connect with people who found it easy to make friends and deal with life’s typical roadblocks. “My dad even called me an alien when I was young,” says Sukan.
“I’m sure that hasn’t affected me in any way.” However, it has helped fuel her animated series, , a comedy about six genius aliens and their puppy Pikamalika travelling on a spaceship shaped like a brain, making sense of what family really means in the face of the infinite possibilities of the universe.There’s just one issue: they’re all teenagers.“I found that I had so many stories and scripts with characters who are kind of adrift and caught between lives and dimensions, cultures and realities,” shares Sukan, the creator, writer, and artist on the series.
“They were all geniuses, but they were also such absurd lunatics, and they were all totally unsuited to getting along with anyone, anywhere.I was like, ‘Well, what if all these brains all had to live together, traveling through the cosmos in a ship shaped like a brain?’ And that became the show.” Working with her sister Julia Sukan, the filmmaker says her 2D-animation is inspired by Chuck Jones and Tex Avery cartoons and Cartoon Network classics like .“There’s so much acting and performance and detail in every movement of those old cartoons,” says Sukan.
“I love the depth of those characters and the elasticity of their expressions.” Geared toward kids and young teens, is a show for outsiders, nerds, misfits, and weirdos who feel like they don’t have a place in the world.But, contrary to what most might deduce, the show isn’t about “being yourself.” “Society conspires to make children ashamed of themselves, so we don't get to understand what it means to ‘be ourselves,’” says Sukan.“We're constantly masking in different ways for different contexts.
So, this is a show not about being yourself, but about defining yourself.It’s about getting to find out what your values are and questioning the things you’ve been told your whole life.This is a show about questioning normalizations, questioning authority, and establishing your own terms and your own values for the first time.” Of course, is also about the ironically uneducated nature of our own brains. “The brain protects you, but can also trap you, and your brain is super smart, but so unbelievably stupid and self-sabotaging.
These characters are geniuses, but basic things like eating breakfast and doing laundry are so dramatic for them.I find there is so much comedy in that tension and contradiction.” She adds, “The show is very unhinged, and that's the kind of comedy that I love so much.This is a show that would have been my favorite when I was a kid.
If it could just be one kid’s favorite show, that would be everything to me.” is currently in early development stages and Sukan has begun the search for a co-producer.Those interested in supporting can reach out to Sukan at [email protected]. Growing up in Malaysia, Yusra Shahid was no stranger to the supernatural and Jinns, spirits called upon for protection or magical aid, were her favorite scary story subjects. “Some of my favorite memories from visiting my grandparents in India during the winter were all of us kids cuddling under cozy blankets, snacking on roasted peanuts, and listening to my grandparents tell these fantastical and spooky stories that were magical, thrilling and full of imagination,” shares Shahid.“I even had a club with my friends, and we would go to the library and read all these stories to one another and discover all we could about these magical, mythical creatures.” Shahid is bringing her childhood memories and fireside folklore to life with , a fantasy-adventure series for kids ages 6-11.
When mythical creatures threaten to disrupt daily life, who ya gonna call? Jinnbusters! The show’s eclectic club of young misfits, headed by the adventurous Noor, must tackle mischievous spirits, solve supernatural mysteries, and restore balance to their small South Asian town, one spooky adventure at a time.“I grew up Muslim so I would hear stories all the time about Hungry Ghosts, Chinese dragons and, of course, Jinns,” says Shahid.“I would be on the school bus asking kids to share stories and they’d try to scare me, but I loved it.” But Shahid’s isn’t aiming to scare kids.
Rather, it aims to recreate the atmosphere of a cozy sleepover with friends, or with beloved grandparents, and captivate kids with the magical nature of the unknown. “It’s like meets Studio Ghibli,” says Shahid.“I want to evoke a sense of childlike wonder.There are intricate and tender themes that we’ll explore in the show all while existing in this imaginative, textured art style.” To help bring the series to life, Shahid has partnered with Toff Mazery, famous for his enchanting art and for creating and executive producing the animated series , on which Shahid was a visual development artist.
“She’s had this idea for a long time, and it started out as a show about a family telling each other stories,” says Mazery, who is a producer on the show. “But I encouraged her to push it further into the adventure, action-comedy space.I just love Yusra’s voice in this and the charm of the art.
I also love how the show treats Jinn almost like Pokémon with different powers.” But despite similarities to fast-paced shows like and , is a slower-paced series, and Shahid says it’s been a challenge going against the grain of what people are typically used to seeing in a show for kids and even preschoolers.But being one of five teams selected for Stories x Women is a good start. “I’ve heard so many stories from people, including Toff, about how this show reminds them of stories their grandparents used to tell them as kids,” says Shahid.“I’m so excited to get in a writer’s room and hear people’s personal stories, geek out over it, and maybe use it in the show.” Those interested in supporting can reach out to Shahid at [email protected].
There’s drama in every family but discovering one’s grandfather was not only a minister during the Bolivian dictatorship, but also the half-brother of the dictator, is even stranger than fiction.And ripe with possibilities. “This has never been talked about or discussed in my family and some people in my family deny this,” says Matisse Gonzalez Jordan.“I noticed how secrets and silences and not being able to talk about my feelings of guilt and shame with the members of my family has felt like a heavy curse.
But in my family, there is also a lot of love, and loads and loads of jokes.I want to show the complexity of a Latin-American family: full of tragedies, but also tenderness and humor.” Enter , Jordan’s 80-minute-long animated feature film about a character named Kiki who, upon inheriting her family’s curse, sets out to confront their dark legacy, forcing her unrepentant grandfather — a former dictator — to face his victims.Kiki risks the bonds of her family to break free from the cycle of guilt and shame that plagues them. “Writing took me many years, because it took me a long time to find out what this film was really about,” says Jordan.
“I also needed a lot of time to come to terms with my relationship with my family and to the film.This is my first feature, so another challenge was losing the fear of writing for such a big project!” She adds, “This is also a weird film, and distributors are confused about where to put it.The subject is dark and heavy, but it is full of silly humor and the character design looks like the film is for children.” The art style of is unique, to be sure.
The character designs are very round and shape-based and the environments reflect the same design.It’s different but not without purpose. “We had two artists working on this and while my style is very minimalistic and flat, my friend Maya's style is super naturalistic and full of textures,” notes Jordan.“Maya works a lot with ink, creating beautiful, detailed backgrounds, but I felt like ink was too soft for the story we wanted to tell, so we decided to print the backgrounds in risography to give it some extra texture.
I work a lot with risography in my spare time and started my career printing comics and fanzines and selling them in flea markets.The look is really a great mixture of our two artistic approaches.” But the style of the film and its subject matter has made distributors question, “Who is this story for?” Jordan’s response is: “It’s for mothers and daughters.” “ is, at its core, a love story between a mother and a daughter,” shares Jordan.“But their relationship is steeped in unhealthy love and co-dependency.
Gema, the mother, struggles to grant her daughter, Kiki, the independence she deserves.In doing so, Gema inadvertently passes down a curse inherited from her own father This sets the stage for the film’s central theme: the things we don’t process are passed down, like a curse.” Looking ahead, Jordan notes that the project has already secured pre-production funding from the German regional fund MFG, and part of the CICLIC fund in France. “We are currently talking with co-producers who would be interested in joining the project,” says Jordan.“We are also talking with distributors, sales agents, and broadcasters.
The next step is joining forces with these parties to jumpstart the financing phase of the project.” Those interested in supporting can reach out to Jordan at [email protected] as well as German producer Stefan Michel at Studio Seufz (www.studioseufz.com) or French producer Nidia Santiago at Ikki Films (www.ikkifilms.com).Among the many joys that come with being a woman, there are an equal number of accompanying horrors.And Renee van Reenen wants to explore them all with her and Tshepo Moche’s horror anthology series, . “It was during COVID, around the time when Jordan Peele did his series, when I started mulling the idea over in my brain,” shares van Reenen.
“I've always loved animation and I've always loved horror, but horror has also been so overused with gender tropes, and I've always wanted to see something new and fresh.So, we’re using it to look at the banal, everyday horror of female-bodied women’s lives all over the world.” In the series, reality, history, folklore, science fiction, urban legend and the supernatural intersect to tell fictional tales of women based on very real, very raw experiences. “We want to focus on the psychological horrors that are incredibly relatable for women no matter where they live,” shares van Reenen.“We also want to bring in local ghost stories and folk takes that are so entwined in gender issues.” While van Reenen hopes the anthology will include stories from all over the world, the first season draws inspiration from South African author Mohale Mashigo and her book, “Intruders.” “We’re using her short stories as a jumping off point,” says van Reenen.
“One of my favorite stories is about a woman who doesn’t know her mother and feels very abandoned.She struggled to understand her lineage and then ends up turning into a mermaid once she steps into the water.She also drowns the man she’s with after she learns that he’s the reason she was estranged from her mother.
It’s an interesting take on trauma, but it mixes it with a monster story.” Moche adds, “When people think of women in horror, they think they’re going to see women dying.Yes, there are physical threats upon us, but there's so much more horror that exists within us, without anybody having to jump in.Even just in myself, there's a horror story going on.
It’s a visceral feeling and that’s what I love about horror and its subgenres.It’s got many different dimensions and has always been a wonderful space for representation.” Moche also has a 17-year-old daughter, and having grown up as, in her words, a “Freddie Kruger baby,” she was anxious to help make this anthology series a reality so her daughter, another fan of horror, would have something worthwhile to watch. “I haven’t seen a lot of horror that I would just eat up,” says Moche.“It’s felt overly commercialized.
And there aren’t a lot of women in this space.So, there were a lot of reasons for me to do this.” Each episode’s animation style will depend on the story and its creator, but Reenen is hoping for a wide variety. “The scale of an anthology is quite scary for producers because the production challenges, I’ve noticed, tend to scare people away,” says van Reenen.“But having so many different voices, from different countries, with different animation styles, was so central to the idea that I just can’t let go of it.” Van Reenen and Moche say they met a lot of good people during their time at Annecy and hope to “keep the momentum going” as they search for development partners and co-producers. “This project is rooted in Africa, but we’re wanting to connect all women,” says Moche.
“At the crux of it we all know, in some deep meta place, that we are all connected.We are all the same but different.I’m excited about mining for stories and experiencing other people’s stories.
That’s what gets me hot.” Those interested in supporting can contact the team at [email protected] and [email protected].12 years ago, Brazilian Bruna Capozzoli and Italian Sara Tenti immigrated to London to build their careers.During their first years in the city, the two worked in restaurants, bars, kitchens, retail shops, and hotels.
These jobs were ways to pay the bills while they pursued filmmaking, but the experiences introduced them to many other immigrants who had left their countries to come to London in search of a better life.And those stories are what led to . “They all had incredible stories of resilience and came from beautiful cultures all over the world,” says Capozzoli.“We've always felt a passion for the world of the invisible people who make big cities function.
This was a story we always wanted to tell, and it would also give us an opportunity to share some of our own stories.” The adult animated comedy series stars Doris, a young rabbit-woman, struggling to start life from scratch in the large metro Better City.As she finds new friendships, a despotic delivery app and rigged social system stand in her way.“The show is all about contrasts: the contrast between dreams and reality, the contrasts between different urban areas, and the contrast between what enriches the human experience and the value placed on money,” says Capozzoli.
“For us, it was very important that areas usually overlooked and undervalued by neoliberal thinking — such as the Global South or immigrant neighborhoods — were shown to be full of color and life.To enhance the color and contrast, Capozzoli and Tenti chose to produce the show in 2D animation.“We’ve been collaborating with the Brazil-based Copa Studio, one of the most highly regarded animation studios in Latin America,” says Capozzoli of the three-time Emmy nominated studio, known for shows such as and “Although we have a very clear vision for every detail and have been solely responsible for the writing so far, we can’t draw.
So, a big part of our efforts involves collaborating very closely with the designers and helping them bring the vision to life.This can be challenging, but it's also a rewarding exercise in communicating a clear vision while inviting the designer to add their own interpretation, imagination, and skills.” So far, Capozzoli and Tenti have worked exclusively with female designers and, ideally, would like to build a team that prioritizes women, LGBTQIA+ individuals and those who are underrepresented in the industry.“We want to use humor and satire to tackle important topics that are not only relevant to our personal journeys, but have also come under increasing threat in many countries — issues related to immigration, the gig economy and its impact on workers’ lives, multiculturalism, gentrification and LGBTQIA+ rights,” says Capozzoli.
“When you walk through the streets of a busy metropolis, all these things are there — everywhere.With this show, we want to examine them a little more closely, guided by the characters who will take us there.Because at the end of the day, it’s all about the characters.
If you don’t care about them, it doesn’t matter what circumstances they’re in — you won’t connect with their story.” This year was Capozzoli and Tenti’s first time attending the Annecy festival, and their goal was to search for co-production partners, investors, and other collaborators.“We’re now continuing some of the conversations we had there, which will hopefully lead to cementing a co-production,” notes Capozzoli.“We need a few different partners beyond Copa Studio to finance the show.
We believe we are on the right track, but it’s still quite early to mention any names.”
Those interested in supporting can reach out to the team at [email protected].
Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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