Marvel’s Black Panther proved the massive storytelling appeal of Afrofuturism when the world of Wakanda was unveiled on the big screen when it was released in 2018. Now, the upcoming Disney+ series Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire is coming to life. builds on that pedestal and is sure to be popular with both MCU fans and anime enthusiasts alike.
Like Star Wars: Visions, Kizazi Moto is an anthology series, with each episode created in a distinctly different style of animation – there’s a mix of 2D and 3D, some taking influence from anime, d ‘other stop-motion and many mix and match styles to create something completely unique.
The series’ executive producer, Peter Ramsey, is best known for his work on Into the Spider-Verse, for which he won an Oscar and a Golden Globe, and the sequel Across the Spider-Verse, which was a smash hit. office at the time of writing.
That said, his work on those films didn’t play into the creative direction of Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire: “The animation styles were really determined by the filmmakers themselves… I guess some of them would have might have been inspired by Spider-Verse, or some of the energy that we tried to bring in, but it all came directly from them.
Production studio Triggerfish has teamed up with a team and talents from Zimbabwe, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt to bring their own take on fantasy and science fiction from a typically African perspective. “It shows how rich and diverse African talent is,” says Catherine Green, who made her animation debut as co-director of the Surf Sangoma episode.
Generation Fire – Surf Sangoma
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Each installment has a very different setting – Surf Sangoma is set in a cyberpunk dystopia where criminals operate as a gang of surfers, Hatima is based in an underwater nation that has an endless war with a tribe on land, and You Give Me Heart creates a utopia that selects its occupants based on the number of social media followers they have.
This is just a preview of three different episodes. Check out the trailer for a taste of what to expect when it hits Disney+ on July 5:
Although Disney referenced Black Panther when first announcing the series, the Marvel movie is just one of many factors behind the creation of Kizazi Moto. Isaac Mogajane is co-director on Hatima and co-founder of Diprente Films. He explains: “Black Panther kind of created a space for us to do these kinds of things… people saw a story told in Africa that was ambitious and big-budget and one of the biggest hits in the game. year.”
Mogajane continues, “Some creators may have been individually influenced by Black Panther, but I know for ourselves (the team behind Hatima) that we weren’t. We were really trying to tell our own story [and] penetrate into our own cultures in a way that seemed faithful to us.
He paid homage to Japanese cyberpunk film Akira to draw inspiration from his episode. Green also cited this film as a frame of reference, although the overall animation of Surf Sangoma was not set in stone from the start. “Our style was more defined by the process. We originally wanted a 2D movie, and ended up moving to sort of a 2D/3D hybrid… we wanted it to look a lot more tactile and textured.
Fire Generation: Fire Generation – Destiny
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Many still believe that animation is strictly for children’s cartoons. Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire challenges that notion once again, building ambitious and gripping worlds that wouldn’t necessarily translate as well to live-action and CGI. As Mogajane says, “With animation, your imagination is the limit.”
For Lesego Vorster, director of You Give Me Heart and founder of The Hidden Hand Studios, there is more than that: “I think the question is when you write these kinds of series… if it can be shot in live action? , why are you animating it? What kind of magic do you bring?
The magic of Vorster’s episode comes from balancing nuanced commentary about how social media overwhelms our self-esteem with a quirky, quick-witted cast of characters. It’s in stark contrast to some of the darker episodes of Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, with themes of loss, war and abandonment all explored, once again dispelling the myth that animation is not not a way to delve deeper into complex themes.
Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire – You Give Me Heart
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As these are short episodes (between 10 and 15 minutes), there’s a lot of knowledge to cram into a short time, and leaving things on the cutting room floor was hard to do at times. As Vorster puts it, “It was hard to take a lot of the world-building off because obviously it’s the first time you’ve gotten such a platform…you just want to pour the whole bucket.”
He referenced how Triggerfish helped in this process, and Ramsey told Tech Advisor more: “Everyone who came to this project had a very strong vision…my job, really, was kind of to help them find the clearest and most impactful way to do this.
“It’s great to see a story blossom by removing the excess…it’s almost like having a block of marble and finding the statue there.”
Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire premieres on Disney+ on July 5, 2023, with ten episodes in total. You can sign up for Disney+ on the website, with prices starting at $7.99/£7.99 per month. You can also read how the cast and crew of Saint X tackled a story with tough timelines.
