Day 5 - Awards Night and Closing Ceremony

The week long event of the Animafrik 2010 came to an end on Friday, August 27 2010. This event was preceded with a 2-week workshop where 13 participants were trained on animation. They completed 8 short animated projects in a week. 

During the awards ceremony, the participants were given certificates and their works, a minute long animated movies were showed. Their works were actually great.

This year's film festival competition received works from all around the world. Categories for the competition were Best International Animated film, Best Animated Music Film, Best African Diaspora Animated Film,Best Experimental Animated film.  Ebele Okoye from Nigeria won the Best African Diaspora Animated Film and the best Experimental Animated film with "The Essence" (5:29 mins) and "Patterns" (10:09 mins) respectively.The Best International Animated Film went to El Viaje de Said from Spain with "Coke Rioboo Cortes". Francis Gelinas from Canada won the Best Animated Music Film with "The SupaFly". 

Members of the Jury were Dr Charles Dacosta of Savannah College -U.S.A, Cilia Sawadago, the head of the animation programme at Mel Hoppenheim School of cinema -Concordia University-Canada and Kwabena Aboagye, head of Photography Department at NAFTI-Ghana. 

Camille Abraham from the University of Trinidad & Tobago launched “The Animae Caribe Africa and The Anansi Mission V”.

Ananse Mission

The Ananse mission IV is a combined Global effort to connect the diaspora to Africa through the web of Ananse. This project involves the creative skills of participants in the field of music, animation, storytelling, art, scriptwriting, producing, directing, legal advice, advertising promotion etc.

The conference started with a narrative of an ananse story.The guitar was played as the story was told. It was on why ananse is always found in a web in the ceiling. In this story,Ananse made a public spectacle of lion by tricking him to ride on his back.

One of the speakers, Mirto Lacle, a linguistic specialist from Aruba spoke on “Compa Nanzi’s chronotopical voyage:from Ghana to the Caribbean’ including Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao(1952-2010)”. Compa Nanzi means Anansesem. It is how the Ananse story has travelled all around the world from Ghana. According to Mirto, research has proved that wherever enslaved people were sent to, there are people who speak a kind of language called Creole. This is the name given to language that is developed as people who speak different languages try to communicate with each other. For example, Papiamento. It is spoken on the Caribbean island of Aruba. The ananse story has also been told around these areas. It is believed that the enslaved that were brought here were from Africa.

Surinam, a country where creole languages are spoken have proverbs on ananse. Some are "When the spiders unite they can tie down the lion". "For a lot of knowledge you may have, there is a lack of knowledge"."All people will die, only ananse will live".

He said that the ananse story narrated at the beginning of the event is told in Aruba as ananse riding on the tiger. The same is told in another place as ananse riding on the horse. As ananse stories travelled, it is adapted to suit their way of life.

Videos were shown of countries where the ananse story has been adapted.

For more information on how far the ananse story has travelled, you can go to www.anansimasters.net.

Camille Abraham, the director of the Ananse Mission from Trinidad and Tobago also elaborated on the voyage of the ananse story and its significance in different cultures. The ananse mission is more than just the ananse story.

The possibilities of the ananse mission are to create research and archiving. Provide links to books, animations, arts and entertainment and development of contemporary stories.

Teaching Animation in Sub Saharan Africa

The 2^nd International Animation Africa Festival, Animafrik 2010 was at the Alliance Francaise from 23-27 August. The activities for the festival include Film screenings, conferences and an award ceremony.

The topic for the conference held on the Thursday August 26 was “Teaching animation in sub Saharan Africa”.

Camille Abraham spoke on developing teaching in digital media, multimedia and animation. Camille is the program coordinator of the Digital Media Studies in the University of Trinidad and Tobago. She enlightened us on the program structure of animation in the Caribbean.

She expressed that there is a misconception that animation is all about cartoons which is not so. There are several interdisciplinary with animations. It is applied in Bioengineering, Marine surveillance etc.

Camille spoke on the content of the animation program in the Caribbean. First of all the students must have a story to tell. Stories can be about the culture of the people. As Africans we have a lot to tell on our rich culture, history and folk tales. Secondly, the principles of animations are taught. Students are expected to take this seriously as its application is essential for successful animations. Aside these, lecturers are keeping up with technology and participating in computer graphics festivals like Siigraph. Colour theory is also taught.

In order to prepare students for the job market, during their studies, they interact with clients through presentations. They are taught to be creating works that are unique and different instead of mimicking the works of other animators. Even if they are inspired by animations from other cultures, they should still produce distinct and unique works as people are looking out for something new.

She said it hurts her to hear that Disney is adapting the “Ananse” story. Camille is part of a global effort to connect the Diaspora to Africa through the web of Anansi.

One of her students, Makesi Aquan presented his work titled “The Ninja Slippers. It is a short animated 2D film about how a boy overcomes his fears through a gift from his grandmother. Even though “Manga”, a Japanese animation inspired the movie, it was unique and Caribbean.

The other resource person,Prog Dacosta from the savannah college ,USA could not make it on time. He spoke on this topic the in an afternoon session the following day.

He said he takes a holistic approach to teaching animations. He teaches his students the history of animations. They are taught not to focus on tools of animation but to be creative. They focus on why they are creating the animation and the information or the story they want to put across. They consider their target audience and the effect they hope to achieve.

He teaches his students to think for themselves and to be creative. He explained that animation is not simply movement but movement that are reproduced. He believes most people who get into animations are simply fans. One does not have to know how to draw to be an animator. To be successful, it takes devotion and patience.

He said an animator has to be creative and encourages his students to explore. He showed us a documentary animation, which is a type of animation he is exploring.