Estelle Gattlen is a 2D/3D animator and animation director from Valais, living in Zürich. She is currently a member of SWAN’s Executive Committee.
Born in a place where everyone knows each other and meets over a drink to watch cows fight (well, Wallis), Estelle crossed the language fence to learn animation at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. In parallel to her animation studies, she never stopped filling dozens of sketchbooks, feeding herself with her daily experiences and sharpening her view of the world a little more each day. Her graduation film Braises made in 2018 with Sarah Rothenberger allowed her to travel from festival to festival, from Slovenian karaoké to Italian screenings. In 2019, Braises won the New Swiss Talent Award at the Fantoche festival in Baden. Co-produced by the SRF, it is sometimes shown on TV, between 3:00 and 3:06 am, which makes her parents very proud.
After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in animation in 2018, she worked 6 months as an intern for the studio Team Tumult. Since then, she has been working in Zurich as a freelance illustrator, director and animator, sharing a studio with her collective founded in 2021: Voila collective.
She works on different projects like explainers, private commissions, but also more personal works such as comics, films and illustrated cards. She is convinced that the most exciting stories take place in everyday life and in simple moments and draw her inspiration mostly from people around her.