Eugene Bondar is a VES Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor with over a decade of experience in film, television, and more than 300 commercials. A member of the Visual Effects Society and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, he has contributed to major productions including The Penguin (HBO), Fallout (Amazon), Westworld (HBO), and others, specializing in high-end photorealistic VFX and compositing.

Faruk Heplevent is the Founder, CEO, and Creative Director of The Scope GmbH, the Hamburg‑based CGI studio that has redefined how the world’s leading carmakers visualise their vehicles. A trained photographer, Faruk entered the industry in 1990 as an assistant on still‑life sets, moved into high‑profile automotive shoots by 1999, and - in 2007 - channelled three decades of craft into launching The Scope, coining the term “CG Photography” to describe the studio’s purely computer‑generated, camera‑grade imagery.

Under his leadership, The Scope has produced award‑winning campaigns and launch assets for Audi, BMW, Tesla, NIO, Genesis, Volkswagen, Toyota, and many more, earning recognition at Cannes Lions and other international festivals.
Faruk’s R&D mindset led to Scope City (2022), a procedural, photoreal urban “city generator” that gives clients fully customisable cityscapes - a breakthrough highlighted by industry partners and podcasts. Today, he balances creative direction with thought‑leadership on the convergence of CGI, real‑time engines, and AI, sharing insights on stages and in media worldwide. When not iterating on the next visual toolset, Faruk enjoys life in Hamburg with his wife and four sons.

Senior Compositing Artist with 14+ years in the VFX industry, born and raised in Rome and holding a Bachelor’s degree in Graphics and Multimedia Design & Architecture. She began her career in Italy before taking her passion abroad, collaborating on high-profile film, TV, and commercial projects with studios such as Axis, DNEG, Framestore, and MPC.

She loves to combine artistic vision with technical skills, and over the years she has enjoyed supporting colleagues and mentoring junior artists. She’s always curious about new technologies and passionate about continuous growth, believing that shared knowledge and a strong, connected team are key to building a successful creative environment. She is currently Lead Compositing Artist at RISE FX in Munich, Germany.

Dennis Rettkowski is a VFX and CG Supervisor with nearly two decades of experience in animation and visual effects. He is a co-founder of LUMATIC Animation & VFX, an award-winning studio based in Berlin established in 2014. With more than 20 feature films as supervisor under his belt, his credits include German Film Award-winning and VES-nominated work across live-action and animation.

Rebecca is 3D Generalist at bEpic a Berlin-based boutique VFX studio crafting high-end visual effects, photoreal 3D, and technically ambitious CG environments. Their team of multi-talented artists spans CGI, 2D design, animation, and immersive real-time experiences, blending artistic vision with advanced simulation and animation workflows.

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With a strong focus on detail, innovation, and collaborative creativity, bEpic delivers cinematic visuals for commercials, feature films, streaming, and immersive media—building a reputation for striking, story-driven work that elevates every project.

Florian Friedmann is a VES Award-winning 3D Artist with a strong focus on Rigging and Animation. From humble beginnings as an intern at Pixomondo to rigging supervisor at Image Engine until Character TD at Bepic Studios.

He worked on shows and movies like Game of Thrones, Lost in Space, Logan, Hugo Cabret or Super 8 and is now producing visual effects for commercials at Bepic Studios. Helping to create huge scale visuals with a small team.

Rico Dober is a Professor of Visual Effects at Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF and Dean of Studies for the Bachelor’s program Visual Effects & Virtual Productions. With more than two decades of professional experience, he has worked in Supervisor roles for leading studios such as DNEG and Framestore. His filmography includes high-profile productions including Gravity, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Avengers: Age of Ultron, among many others. 

After studying Media and Information Sciences, he began his career as a freelance Digital Artist and Technical Director in Berlin before moving to London in 2009, where he joined Framestore as Lead Pipeline TD on shows such as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Gravity. He later took on roles including FX Supervisor and CG Supervisor at DNEG. In 2020, he returned to Germany as a professor at TH Ostwestfalen-Lippe. Since 2021, he has been a board member of the Visual Effects Society Germany. His current research focuses on Virtual Production and Artificial Intelligence. At SIGGRAPH 2025 in Vancouver, he organized and moderated the panel “Navigating the Future of VFX Education.”

Goran is leading the team at Stormborn Studios, an Emmy and VES Award-winning visual effects company based in Vancouver. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, he specializes in complex FX-driven sequences for film and television. Goran has contributed to major features including 2012, Man of Steel, and 300: Rise of an Empire, and more recently supervised the FX work on acclaimed series such as Yu Yu Hakusho, 5 Days at Memorial, and The Penguin.

Tobias is 3D Generalist at bEpic a Berlin-based boutique VFX studio crafting high-end visual effects, photoreal 3D, and technically ambitious CG environments. Their team of multi-talented artists spans CGI, 2D design, animation, and immersive real-time experiences, blending artistic vision with advanced simulation and animation workflows.

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With a strong focus on detail, innovation, and collaborative creativity, bEpic delivers cinematic visuals for commercials, feature films, streaming, and immersive media—building a reputation for striking, story-driven work that elevates every project.