Africa is ready to showcase its creativity to the world in the form of Disney+'s sci-fi animated anthology series Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse co-director Peter Ramsey is an executive producer on this project that brings together the greatest animation talent from the continent to tell their unique stories. From alien races through the streets of Soweto, Johannesburg, to herders who utilize technology in a way that makes Aloy from the Horizon video game series look like an amateur, the shorts represent the exciting intersection of Africa and sci-fi technology.
CBR caught up with Ramsey and directors Lesego Vorster ("You Give Me Heart"), Isaac Mogajane ("Hatima"), and Catherine Green ("Surf Sangoma") to find out more about this ambitious anthology series. The creative team discussed how they decided on specific animation and the challenges of telling a comprehensive story in 10 minutes. Ramsey also revealed what appealed to him about the project.
CBR: Peter, what criteria did you use when selecting the animated shorts?
Peter Ramsey: We were looking for things that had a unique African perspective on science fiction and the future. We were also looking for things that add a sense of optimism and hope for the future. We wanted them to be entertaining and [to be able to] play to a broad audience. We started from quite a few and whittled it down to the 10 we have, and all of those pretty much fit the mark of what we were looking for. I think [they] exceeded our hopes in how fun and entertaining they were going to be.
Lesego, "You Give Me Heart" tackles society's relationship with social media. It reminds me of Black Mirror in many ways. What inspired this story?
Lesego Vorster: Well, firstly, it was my own experience with social media. That duality, and as an artist [who] started creating things for social media. And the call to pitch for Kizazi Moto came at the right time -- level five lockdown. It came at just the right time when I was still grappling with this thing, and it was an outlet for me to tell this story. That's where it actually came from. It was a personal thing that I had to elevate, and the writers really helped with that.
Isaac, the aquatic fantasy of "Hatima" shows off two different worlds and deals with the topic of duality. I'm interested in finding out more about the story behind the story here.
Isaac Mogajane: Yeah, there was quite a lot. I think the biggest challenge that we had… It's a very big world, or worlds, that we created. There's a lot of mythology and backstory to both worlds, the characters, and Hatima itself and what it is. We had to chop a lot of that away because we only had 10 minutes. It was an interesting thing for us to learn as filmmakers -- like what is actually important to keep us emotionally engaged with our characters and some of the details that you think are important [that] you feel you could explore in other mediums maybe one day; a comic book or something like that. One of the biggest notes we had at the beginning was that the mythology is really big, the world is really big, [and] the backstory is really big. Let's find a way to hone in on the important stuff and keep that stuff in the background, which we did our best to do.
Catherine, the art style for "Surf Sangoma" is quite striking. I'd like to find out more about the decision to utilize this style and the reasoning behind it.
Catherine Green: It was a taste thing. Nthato, my co-director, and I weren't very big fans of that plasticky, bubbly 3-D look. So we wanted to find ways of using the capabilities of 3-D and merging it with a more painterly 2-D quality. That's where that 2-D/3-D hybrid happened. It was not something we envisioned at the beginning of the process, but we are very glad about how it turned out.
Isaac, I'm also interested in finding out more about the animation style for "Hatima." What are some of the decisions that went into creating that specific look?
Mogajane: We did the opposite [of] what Cath and Nthato did. We were initially looking at a 3-D look, and then we started exploring a 2-D option. And it just felt right for our form. Primarily because the artist who is my co-director -- Terence Maluleke -- is an amazing 3-D artist, and his stuff just looks like you just want to see it come to life as it is without that transition into CG. So we felt that going 2-D was the truest way to stay true to his vision. And, yeah, it helps that there are benefits to 2-D in terms of the scale that you can go to. You don't need to build the assets of every background, every environment, and all of that. For our story that was epic and jumped between two worlds, we felt that 2-D allowed us to be as ambitious with the scope of the story as possible.
Peter, the shorts present many captivating characters and premises. There was one specifically – "Mkhuzi: The Spirit Racer" -- that I thought could be fleshed out into a longer series. Are there any plans to flesh out the shorts into bigger features or their own animated series?
Ramsey: I think there are many of them -- probably, most of them -- that could live on that way and be expanded. The short form... You can do a lot with it, and it's a tricky form to master. We have got a lot of powerful essential ideas and hints of worlds that go way beyond what the filmmakers were able to explore in 10 minutes. Obviously, it depends on how these things are received [and] what kind of appetite there is for them. But as far as the storytelling potential of these, yeah, you could [expand to] series [and] features. There's plenty you could do. I just hope we get the chance because there's worlds of creativity in there.
Lesego, I'm interested in the decision to present the main character [Sundiata] as an artist. Was there a personal symbolism to it?
Vorster: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. He's always been an artist. Sundiata has always been an artist; always had aspirations of being more. From the pitch, that's one of the things that has stayed true till the end. So yeah, it's like a self-reflection: me, suffering with the duality.
Catherine, a lot of these shorts, while tonally different, still blend together [thematically]. Were any of you aware of what the other teams were doing at any time? Or did you all work independently?
Green: We worked independently. There were directors' show and tell. But largely, we worked in isolation. So that's why it was quite interesting to see the unifying themes that came out at the end.
Back to you, Peter. I'm quite interested in the decision to focus on the melting point of technology and Africa. Why was this the hook for the series?
Ramsey: I first became aware of the African animation community in 2019 when I got invited to the Cape Town Animation Festival. For me, it was just this explosion of creativity and a goldmine of imagination and energy in a new perspective. It really felt like people here were buzzing and ready for the rest of the world to see what they had to say. I met the folks from Triggerfish, which is the studio that produced Kizazi Moto. Way back then, they were looking for ways to introduce the world to what was going on here. About a year after that, they got back in touch with me and said, "Hey, we've got the idea for this anthology, and it looks like Disney+ might be interested. Would you be interested in participating?" And I said, "Yeah!" Because, like I said, I felt, "Wow, I think this is something that the world really needs to see, and [it] feels like people here are ready to take that leap onto the world stage."
So, I think as much as anything else, it was just this confluence of there being an appetite for this in the world, as reflected in the success of something like Black Panther. There was also the readiness and the excitement within the community to be part of that. I think it was a perfect storm, and here we are.
Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire drops on Disney+ on Wednesday, July 5.