Kwame is an animator and illustrator living in Nairobi, Kenya heading up animation studio Apes in Space. He has been involved in several animation training and production initiatives on the continent, including UNESCO’s ‘Africa Animated!’ Project, and Tiger Aspect’s ‘Tinga Tinga Tales‘ children’s TV series. Kwame produces short films, commercials, and storyboard work for the budding film and animation industry in Kenya. Kwame also illustrates for book and editorial. His most notable success being writing and illustrating the children’s book ‘A Tasty Maandazi’ 2006.
The short film ‘The Legend of Ngong Hills’, produced in 2010, marks Kwame’s endeavor to showcase the possibilities that lie in using animation to tell African folklore and fantasy.
Adamu Waziri is a lover of all things animation. As is common with most animators, he was drawing comics and cartoons from a young age. He trained as an architect originally at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He then did a Masters in Animation at the NCCA in Bournemouth in the UK. He worked as a 3D animator in London in companies like Passion Pictures and Arup. He proceeded to set up EVCL, a creative studio in Abuja Nigeria. EVCL is now producing a new children’s series called Bino and Fino.
Dr. Mohamed Ghazala is a lecturer, artist of animated films, and the founder and director of the first chapter of the International Animated Film Association ASIFA in Africa and in the Arab world based in Egypt. Currently he works as full-time lecturer in Minia University and Since he finished his under graduation study, he directed and co-directed many awarded films, such as "Carnival" (2001), "Crazy Works" (2002), "HM HM" (2005),"Sayari Yetu" (2006), including the first Yemen's animated film "Salma" in 2006.and "Honyan's Shoe" (2009) which won the Animation Prize at The African Movie Academy Awards (The African Oscar AMAA) in Lagos/Nigeria 2010.
Ree Treweek forms a third of the fantasy collective The Blackheart Gang whose focus largely concerns explorations into a realm best known as The Household. The Gang have been documenting this realm using a number of mediums including music, books, short films and Instillation pieces. Ree also forms part of the Gang’s commercial counterpart, Shy The Sun. As a character designer and director, Ree forms an integral part of the company, adding pivotal ideas and imagery to the company’s creative process.
A Kenyan Digital Content Creator, Gatumia trained in Canada and has been working in Kenya for the last 9 years. He has worked with various advertising agency teams to produce advertising material for the television broadcast media. He has also done editing and post-production work on two short documentaries. He currently heads RECON-Digital, a local animation outfit, actively engaged in developing top quality animation products for both the Kenyan and the international markets with a strong leaning towards producing story-driven animation.
Anthony was born in 1979 in Cape Town, left a career in science to pursue his love for animation. He studied stop-motion animation at Van Arts, in Vancouver, and his first film "The Slipper Cycle", was awarded in Tampa, Florida, and the NTVA Stone Awards. Anthony is now Head of Story and Creative Producer/Director at Triggerfish, in Cape Town. He is one of the founding members of Animation SA and animationXchange.
Phil Cunningham’s is an entrepreneurial, “out of the box” animation producer & the owner of Sunrise Productions. His passion is story and the incredible power of how story translates across race, cultural and age barriers in the format of animation. He produced Africa’s first animation feature film The Legend of the Sky Kingdom. Following that came Jungle Beat a CGI TV series that has been broadcast in 170 countries. Series 2 is currently in production. Soon to be released is The Lion of Judah a full-length CGI animated feature Phil produced. Sunrise also created Bokkie a CGI animated character who is the official mascot of SA Rugby.
Big up to our partners at African Digital Art, an incredible resource for digital artist enthusiasts and professionals. Jepchumba, the creative director and founder, is responsible for the fine look and feel and functionality of the site you're browsing right now. 
Pingback : African animation
Hi Mark,
Thank you for your thoughtful response and for clarifying the logic behind selecting the 7 pieces. I understand that it is not easy to keep up with the happenings in the continent from time to time. The reason why I sounded aggressive on this issue is because I see it happening repetitively in many occasions at various platforms. I am very passionate about issues that affect Africa since I consider myself African. But I always get disappointed whenever I visit sites that are about 'Africa' yet they fail to manifest the diversity that's apparent in the continent. In most cases Africa is pretty much synonymous with Western, Southern, and Central and some of the Eastern countries. It is as if the rest of us don't exist or don't count. The funny thing is Ethiopia, for example, the country which is usually excluded from contemporary 'African' dialogue, is the political capital of the continent and a symbol of freedom for many black nations across the world. Anyway, I am not here to rant and rave about my country, but to point out the under-representation of some of the African countries, including my own, that I always notice in 'african' web-interactions or off-line forums.
If you are interested here are some of the other animators from Ethiopia that I know are based there:
1) Biruktawit Tigabu, co-creator of Tsehai Loves Learning, an educational children’s TV program, sesame street style, (recently featured on CNN and TEDx) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwIwgSj1_xE)
2) Birhanu Mulatu Desta, creator of the 3-D animation series, Aleka Abebe, the first featured Ethiopian animation on YouTube (trained in Canada but now based in Addis) (http://ethiopiaforums.com/ethiopian-life-in-3d-video)
3) Girma Zeleke, creator of the first Ethiopian animated doll, Senzero, which has been a successful venture for the animator. (www.senzero.net)
All of them create their animations in Ethiopia's official language: Amharic.
To Admin:
Thank you for letting me air my grievance and for your friendly response despite my 'pissed off' approach. :)
Peace
Hey Observer,
Appreciate your insight and thanks for recommending Ezra to me, means a lot and it's not been easy mapping these groups of animators across the continent, it continues to be something I'm challenged by and trying to solve with people like yourself.
One thing about this list however, is that all the animators here are based on the continent. Ezra's great and I'll add him to my list along with a bunch of others in the diaspora I believe he's based in Brooklyn? This list was part of some work I did for CinemAfrica and the full list has over 30 animators all based on the continent and a handful abroad. The challenge is finding those based here in Africa, even though some had the privilege to get training abroad and such.
One thing I like that you brought up was the language, since the local stations and media can at times be non-receptive (hard to speak definitively for the continent, but suffice it to say in many African countries, South Africa and Northern Africa aside) to the price of animation it is up to the animator to make it for a global audience and this means making it in English/French/Portuguese depending on their background in Africa. I understand that these examples here are mostly in English, but I've also taken into consideration the audience of AfriPOP! in this. The final list of films I curated with CinemAfrica included Portuguese, English and French films in a variety of styles: stop-motion, 2d, 3d and claymation.
I'm also based 100% on the continent myself and I'm glad to be part of the team at africandigitalart.com where you'll find a nice mix of visual artists and creatives from Africa and the diaspora, it's all about giving those on the continent the opportunity and platform to showcase and connect with others.
Love to chat this over with you more if you're keen and appreciate you commenting. Thanks Admin as well for your points.
Mark Kaigwa.
Yes you do seem rather pissed off. There will never be enough room to cover the entire creativity of the entire continent in one single blog post. And we would be fooling ourselves if we made this our ambition. There are entire websites dedicated to this kind of thing. I will refer you to African Digital Art whom we shouted out at the end of the post. They are amazing. And they will probably let you know that the ground they cover is by no means exhaustive. We are doing our part to bring the arts that we love to fore. It is up to those who would like to take it further - do some research, spread the word, use their platforms. And by the positive feedback we are getting on this post I think we have achieved what we set out to do.
It is my belief that those Africans, that are media owners, must encourage more of those works of art produced in African languages that will have little chance to get an international spotlight than only promoting those works produced mainly in English. 4 or 5 out of the seven pieces presented are all in English. That to me says little about celebrating African diversity and promoting African identity.
The question is why only these 7 when the list can include more diverse pieces of animations ? Why should I know them? Why can't I know the others that are not mentioned? What was the criteria to select just these ones? ... Was it due to lack of information on the others or does the animation piece has to be made only in English for it to get recognized? ... The post raises several others questions. :) Btw Ezra is not the only animator from Ethiopia ... there are a couple of others that have been on CNN, BBC, what have you. ... in case, you are wondering, yes I am Ethiopian, and I am pissed off because whenever I see a post on 'Africa' I notice some kind of exclusivity that sort of corners the Horn of African countries to the side. I believe that has to stop and I am gonna fight it whenever I encounter it. ;)
Hi there observer! We should maybe point out that the list is of '7 animators you should know'. Not 'the only 7 animators you should know'. Mark, our guest blogger, is extremely thorough with his work as you will discover when you research about him and read his full credentials. Thank you so much for your contribution, we will definitely check out Ezra :)
Great info, but you should also add Ezra Wube, a talented ethiopian animator and fine artist, to the list: http://www.youngupstarts.com/2010/06/13/ezra-wube-drawing-world-cup-2010-on-canvas/ ... I always feel nauseated when people write about 'Africa' and they don't do enough research ... sorry but ive to say that.
Pingback : 7 African Animations…. | Bino and Fino