Telling and distributing stories inspired by and set in Africa all over the world, networking and creating collaborations between artists from all over the continent, from comics to animation.
It was the objective with which the Pan -African Comic Book Entertainment Company, Kugali Entertainment, was born in 2017, co-founded by three young artists, Nigerian childhood friends Tolu Olowofoyeku, and Olufikayo "Ziki" Adeola with Ugandan Hamid Ibrahim.
A hotbed of ideas from which Disney Animation has also decided to draw, which for the first time in 100 years is creating a production in partnership with an external studio: it is Iwájú: City of Tomorrow, a brilliant and engaging sci-fi/family animated series in six episodes set in Nigeria which will debut on Disney+ on April 3.
Iwaju (a word that means future), directed by 'Ziki' Adeola (also co-writer, with Halima Hudson, a Disney talent who has worked on Big Hero 6 and Frozen 2 among others) was created together by dozens of artists in Africa and in the rest of the world.
It is the first original Disney Animation series, i.e. not born as a development of pre-existing material.
The story set in a futuristic Lagos in Nigeria, which combines classic themes such as the Bildungsroman and the relationship between parents and children, a captivating animation style, the story of the colorful and vital Nigerian reality in various aspects, from food to music (the soundtrack is by the Nigerian composer King Olunuga) but it also touches on current topics such as the society divided between a few rich people and many poor people and the phenomenon of flash kidnappings.
At the center of the plot is Tola, a bright and curious almost 11-year-old girl who spends most of her time alone with the servants in a large house in the richest and most privileged part of the city.
In fact, his widowed father, Tunde Martins, a talented engineer, is often away and even when he is at home he is too busy with work.
The little girl ends up in the sights, for a kidnapping, of a local criminal leader, Bode, intent on taking revenge for the oppression suffered by the rich: the man thus decides to use Kole, a young boy, in need of money, to look after his mother, employed as handyman in the Martins house and become a great friend of Tola.
The kidnapping succeeds but Otin, the special robot lizard created by her father, helps Tola.
"We immediately thought of science fiction for the series - explains Hamid Ibrahim, production designer of Iwaju, in the remote meeting with the international press -. We wanted to capture what real life is in Lagos, and we looked to the future to enhance its most interesting."
Compared to the serious and current themes "that we deal with - says director Ziki Adeola - I thought about how we often underestimate children in their ability to understand. We also wanted to include deeper notes while keeping the story fun and suitable for everyone".
This “is our love letter to Lagos and Nigeria.”
When Kugali was born "at the beginning it was just the three of us - adds Adeola in the documentary that accompanies the launch of the series - with a dream to realize and for which we were working hard".
Jennifer Lee, creative director of Disney Animation, met them through a television report where Hamid Ibrahim, smiling, indicated among Kugali's objectives also "to screw Disney in Africa".
From the video "I saw that they were artists, that they were full of passion and that they were getting results" explains Lee.
So they started a dialogue and together arrived at the right idea to collaborate.
Among the Disney artists involved there is also a master like Marlon West, an animator specialized in special effects (among others for The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hercules, Mulan, Frozen and Frozen II, Moana, Encanto): "I was working on Encanto and on our internal site I read colleagues talking about Iwaju, saying that it would combine science fiction, Afrobeat, and a crime story... I immediately wanted to be part of the team."
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