Archive Episode - Sub-Saharan African Animation (1966-2013) (with Paula Callus)

Pumzi (Wanuri Kahiu, 2009).

The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!

For this second archive episode, Chris and Alex revisit Episode 81 of the podcast that gave listeners a quickfire journey through Sub-Saharan African animation with Paula Callus, a Professor in the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University and an expert in Sub-Saharan African animation. The films covered in this instalment were Moustapha Alassane’s Bon Voyage Sim (1966), Ng’endo Mukii’s Yellow Fever (2013), Iwa (2009) from Nigerian filmmaker, illustrator and art director Kenneth (Shofela) Coker, the British/Kenyan animated television series Tinga Tinga Tales (2010-2012), and the science-fiction allegory Pumzi (2009) from writer and director Wanuri Kahiu. Lots here on the cultural and historical specificity of fantasy storytelling, global animation practices, and the post-colonial legacies that guide how African animation has been culturally and critically understood.

**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**

**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**

Suggested Readings

  • Brown, William. 2018. Non-Cinema: Global Digital Film-making and the Multitude. New York: Bloomsbury Academic

  • Callus, Paula. 2012. “Reading Animation through the Eyes of Anthropology: A Case Study of sub-Saharan African Animation.” animation: an interdisciplinary journal 7, no. 2 (July): 113-130.

  • Callus, Paula. 2018. “Animating African History: Digital and Visual Trends.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History.

  • Espinosa, Julio García. 1979. “For an Imperfect Cinema.” Jump Cut 20: 24-26, available here.

  • Fanon, Frantz. 1952. Black Skin, White Masks. Paris:
    Éditions du Seuil.

  • Hume, Kathyrn. 1984. Fantasy and Mimesis: Response to Reality in Western Literature. London: Routledge.

  • Husbands, Lilly. 2013. “The Meta-Physics of Data: Philosophical Science in Semiconductor’s Animated Videos.” Moving Image Review & Art Journal (MIRAJ) 2, no. 2: 198–212.

  • Solanas, Fernando and Octavio Getino. 1969. “Towards a Third Cinema.” TRICONTINENTAL 14 (October): 107-132

  • Pilling, Jayne. 2012. Animating the Unconscious: Desire, Sexuality and Animation. London and New York: Wallflower.

  • Wells, Paul. 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantFILM STYLE, CARTOON, CHILDREN, NATIONAL, IMAGINATION, AFRICAN, FANTASY, CULTUREComment