Reach out to Michael Oshindoro at oshindoro@wisc.edu if you have any questions.
Note: Parents can bring their children!
A stunning pan-African debut in animation, Disney’s Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire invites critical questions and reflection. The Africanfuturist animated anthology presents a ten-episode series characterized by fast-paced plots and well-developed yet straightforward characters. With each episode centering young protagonists, the show prioritizes futuristic imaginations, subjectivities, and voices. Dialogues that reconcile the past with contemporary issues while projecting new futures propel the show. From South Africa and Zimbabwe to Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Egypt, the artistic directors of the episodes narrate gripping adventure tales with formal and aesthetic appeal that offer a dialectic meditation on how Africa’s next generation relates to African identity and tradition, history, and culture in the futuristic worlds they inhabit.
This screening invites members of the UW campus community to watch five episodes of the series. Each episode is 10 minutes in length. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Shofela Coker, the director of the third episode “Moremi,” a futuristic reimagination of the legend of a historical queen in modern-day Nigeria. To frame and spark conversation, three graduate students who have pre-screened the animations will have five minutes each to present their written responses and provocations about the show. This response panel is sponsored by the Tejumola Olaniyan Reading Group, an informal interdisciplinary collective dedicated to engaging with issues of global Black cultural studies. A Question-and-Answer section with the larger audience will follow where Shofela Coker responds to questions about his episode and offers insights into the production process.
Kizazi Moto emerged as a collaboration between Disney Animation and Triggerfish, Africa’s leading South African-based animation studio. The Executive Producer is Peter Ramsey, director of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The project’s co-producers were Zimbabwean Tendayi Nyeke and South African Anthony Silverston. The show premiered in Johannesburg, South Africa in Summer 2023.
This event is made possible with support from the Tejumola Olaniyan Foundation, the African Studies Program, and the Department of African Cultural Studies.
