Animation Workshop Brings Local History to Life...

Animation Workshop Brings Local History to Life

A five-day Stop Motion Animation workshop took place from 20 August, ahead of the 2018 International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) in Harare. The workshop was facilitated by Qatar-based Brazilian filmmaker, Luciana Farah, who also brought her documentary film ‘Somebody Please Clap for Me’ to be screened at the festival. The workshop was supported by Africalia and held at Magamba Network’s Moto Republik.

Farah, a fine-artist, is a self-taught animator whose love for Stop Motion Animation is both awe-inspiring and infectious. She learnt how to animate specifically for her film ‘Somebody Please Clap for Me’, where she needed to insert a 4 minute animation sequence on the history of Uganda. After getting quotations that were simply beyond her reach, she decided to ‘go it alone’.

One of the main objectives of the workshop was to introduce the participants to auto-ethnographical political satire documentary. This required the participants to look into the history of their soicety and how it relates to their current situation so as to tell this stroy "n their own way. Farah encouraged the workshop participants to "1) Learn the basics. 2) Improve yourself then 3) Start charging people for it!!”

The workshop engaged with the history of the Harava people who lived in the Central Building District of the City of Harare. The draft edit, screened as part of the festival closing ceremony at the National Gallery, stirred a lot of excitement and discussion amongst audience members, several of whom proudly claimed their heritage as descendants of this fabled royal clan, while others urged the team of animators to continue working on the story.