After graduating from the Institute of Animation at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in 2003, Saschka Unseld co-founded the award winning animation studio “Studio Soi” where he directed and produced numerous award winning idents, commercials and short films. In 2008 he moved to California where he worked as a Camera and Staging Artist at Pixar Animation Studios. In 2012 he became the first Pixar director to come out of a technical department. His directorial debut at Pixar "The Blue Umbrella" which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival will be released theatrically in 2013 in front of Monsters University.