Sanjay Mistry, who is on the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) games committee, is among guest speakers at Animex, which is now in its ninth year.
Events will be held at the University of Teesside and a range of venues across the Tees Valley, from 4 to 8 February.
Sanjay, a high profile industry figure from electronic arts, is taking part in one of the many events planned as part of the main festival - Animex Game, which focuses on the latest developments in computer games.
Animex Game takes place on 4 and 5 February, with sessions on graphics in the high definition era, games audio design, scriptwriting, art and design. It also involves networking sessions aimed at gamers, games students and the games industry.
Sanjay will talk about his career in a BAFTA-sponsored session to be held at the University’s Europa Building at 2.15pm on Tuesday 5 February.
His visit is not the only recent BAFTA link for the university.
Gabrielle Kent, Senior Lecturer in Computer Games Art and Design and Animex Games Director, was invited to help judge the computer games BAFTAs. The British Academy Video Games Awards 2007, televised on E4 and Channel 4’s T4, is held as part of the BAFTAs to acknowledge artistic, creative and technical achievement video games.
Gabrielle was the only woman among the eight-strong panel who judged the Artistic Achievement category. She said: ‘It’s a very male dominated industry and they are wanting to broaden the judging panels to include more women.’
Gabrielle received a bundle of games to judge, but also had to join the rest of the BAFTA panel to judge some games prior to their release. She said: ‘We decided on a shortlist of six, before each secretly voting for the winner. We didn’t know ourselves which game had won until it was announced at the awards ceremony.’
Although Gabrielle didn’t attend the BAFTA ceremony, she was pleased to hear a Japanese game called Okami had won. She said: ‘It was really different to all the others. Although many were technically brilliant, this game was really creative.’