A Ugandan story features in Disney+’s new original short series titled Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire which premiered exclusively on Disney+ this Wednesday.
The action-packed animated sci-fi anthology presents ten futuristic stories from Africa that reimagine what the continent’s future would look like, drawing inspiration from diverse cultures.
Ugandan animator, Raymond Malinga (A Kalabanda Ate My Homework) was among six directors from six African countries to curate stories off the anthology. The title is derived from the Swahili phrase ‘kizazi cha moto,’ which literally translates as ‘fire generation’.
Featured on the same Disney project are directors from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt.
These worked with Oscar-winning director Peter Ramsey (Spider–Man: Into The Spider–Verse), alongside Tendayi Nyeke and Anthony Silverston, with Triggerfish as the lead studio on this series.
In an exclusive interview, Plugged spoke to Raymond Malinga on his short film titled Herderboy, what it felt like working on a Disney project and what this means for the Ugandan film industry. Herderboy tells a story of an elite trio of cattle herders who protect precious cyborg cattle from deadly spirits on the wild frontier of the Chwezi Kingdom in the highlands of future Uganda.
Hidden amongst the herd is Ndahura, a teen who is desperate to prove himself as a warrior and become a legend like his three heroes. When the herders are attacked, Ndahura makes a reckless choice to take on a vengeful hyena monster that he must fight alone.
Malinga shares that working with Walt Disney Company, which is one of the world’s largest entertainment companies and is considered a pioneer in the animation industry, has been a remarkable learning experience.
Many of Disney’s films are considered the greatest of all time and the studio has created some of the most influential and memorable fictional characters of all time, including Mickey Mouse, Woody, Captain America, Jack Sparrow and Iron Man.
When did you first learn about this project and how did you finally get involved?
In 2019, I went to Cape Town (South Africa) where I met Peter Ramsey, Aron Warner (American film producer and voice actor best known for producing the Shrek films), some big-shot executives in the animation space. I also met a team from Triggerfish (a computer animation film studio based in South Africa and Ireland). There were rumors about something but it wasn’t ‘Kizazi Moto’ at the time. It was just ‘We are thinking of doing something’. I didn’t think much of it.
Then, later in mid-2020, is when I received an email. We weren’t told it was Disney involved. We were just told ‘Triggerfish is looking to do some stuff. Can you pitch some projects?’ So, I just pitched. I later found out it was Disney.
What previous projects have you worked on?
I own a studio (Creatures Animation Studio) in Uganda. I co-own it with my brother, Robin Malinga, and we started it in 2015. Initially, we were doing NGO work such as explainer videos.
In November 2015, we started a short film called A Kalabanda Ate My Homework and that’s what our studio has come to be known for mostly.
A Kalabanda Ate My Homework went on the awards circuit. We released it in 2017 and in 2018, it went to the Cannes Film Festival (France) and it (film) was in the short film corner.
We got exposed. We talked to a lot of people and it opened up networks. I went to Nigeria and I was invited to speak in a couple of places. I started building the networks. To this day, A Kalabanda Ate My Homework is the project that has brought the bulk of the work to our studio. Taking the risk to do that project is the best decision I have ever made in my life, in terms of my animation career. In one single film, we managed to market our studio as the capable animation studio. Those are the kinds of doors it opened.
How I ended up in Cape Town (2019), was because someone in Nigeria recommended that I go and speak in their place at the Cape Town International Film Festival. So, in a way, A Kalabanda Ate My Homework is connected to Kizazi Moto.
Uganda is among 6 African countries whose stories feature on the Disney project. How does this make you feel? Did this responsibility (of representing Uganda) exert a lot of pressure on you?
In the beginning, I won’t lie, there was a lot of pressure. And I asked the other directors ‘Do you guys feel the pressure I feel?’. And some of them did.
What I kind of got out of it is – my perspective is only one perspective of how Ugandans can tell a story. It kind of alleviated the pressure for me because I realized that the number one thing I have to do is tell my story well and hope that people get entertained. If I can entertain people, that means I have done my job well.
As it (project) went on, the pressure about me being the first Ugandan person doing this started to ease up on me. At the beginning, it felt very difficult. I just felt I was carrying the country on my shoulders. But I learnt to have fun later.
Tell us what your experience has been like working with Disney, one of the biggest production studios globally? What does this mean for your career?
It was quite challenging. But I love learning. Whenever I’m in that space of discomfort because I don’t know something, I actually feel happy. Coz that means I’m going to learn something at the end of it all.
For me, the experience was nourishing. There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t know. Different studios animated the different episodes. My episode was animated at Triggerfish. So, it was a Triggerfish Production, and then we tap in with Disney (which has won 135 Academy Awards).
The Disney EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) group were making sure they guide like… ‘Hey, this is where you can make it emotional’. ‘This is where you can make the audience understand the character more’. So, I learnt a lot and that’s the number one benefit. I’ve been exposed a lot. What this means for my career, we’ll wait and see.
But my stance is, even if I didn’t do Kizazi Moto, I already had a dream of building a studio and creating features and series. So, if Kizazi Moto didn’t come, I still would be on track to do that. I just see it as a catalyst or an accelerator to that dream. My ultimate goal is to build the Ugandan industry and to contribute to the African industry. And I’m doing that from my studio.
Tell us about Herderboy. What story are you trying to tell with Herderboy and what inspired it?
When we were starting out the Kizazi Moto journey, we were challenged to tell stories of the future of Africa. Not necessarily futuristic, but just optimistic. And takes on African that have never been seen and projecting ourselves in the future.
For me, my aim was – ‘How do I tell a Ugandan story that when someone else in Uganda sees it, they will sense that we are capable of telling these kinds of stories?’.
At its heart, Herderboy is a story about proving yourself and it mirrors the journey that I and the other directors were going through while making this project. We are trying to put Africa on the map and we are trying to prove that we too can play with the big boys.
On another level, I decided that if I was to tell a story about the future of Uganda, I wanted to make it accessible in a way to the people today. I looked for something today in our country that is part of our culture and that has not changed for a long time. Uganda is a conservative country and as a result, there is a slowness to move things forward.
We have a big cattle-herding culture in Uganda and cattle are very valuable here, they are used for different things. When you look at cattle herders around the world, they are always portrayed the same way in the media. They are always just a primitive guy out in the savannah.
I decided that if I could put a cattle herder in a futuristic context, then maybe when they watch my film, they will wonder ‘What else have we just not been looking at in a different way?’ In Herderboy, it’s a world where cattle herding is the coolest job.
Uganda is known to be a multicultural country. What drew you to the story of the Chwezi Kingdom?
The story does have some inspirations from the Bachwezi who are said to have introduced the long-horned cattle. My idea is that if the Bachwezi still existed and they continued to develop, what would they look like now?
They seemed to have magic. They were called demigods. What if demigods meant they (Bachwezi) were technologically advanced? So, my story is – Bachwezi are cattle herders in the future and it’s a story of proving oneself.
When I was researching about the Bachwezi, I found out that the stories in Western Uganda start with.. ‘The Bachwezi came to Western Uganda’. And so, the question is – where did they come from?
There was room to play with the fact that they did move around and they were this powerful group of people. A research paper I read said they came from the North. I lurched onto that and the way I approached it was… ‘That means there are customs and traditions from the North that they came with’. And if they continued to be around till today and they were this powerful kingdom, what if they expanded all across Uganda? That means they were multicultural.
In the film, I deliberately used different names from different cultures and different languages. It’s English mainly but I also use Luganda, Lango and Kiswahili. The reason is, I’m trying to view them as this multicultural powerful Ugandan kingdom. I’m not talking about the Bachwezi from the past but rather the fictional version of Bachwezi that could have potentially lived in the future.
I know I will probably get some backlash from some people, but to be honest, this is just one version of how this story can be told.
Were there other storylines that initially crossed your mind before you zeroed down on the Herderboy and Bachwezi story?
Funny enough, we were asked to put in 3 projects and they would choose one. I only put in 2. The other one is something I’m working on with my studio.
The reason I wanted to do Herderboy is because a version of Herderboy existed while I was at university and I never finished it. It was one of my university assignments. That’s why I’m doing Herderboy on another level, to just hand in my assignment. Okay, this is just something cheeky. [Laughs]
I understand that Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire sought to answer the question ‘What does African future look like from an African perspective?’ How does Herderboy portray the future of Africa?
For me, when this challenge came up, what I asked myself was, ‘How can I create a technology or a world that could have only been thought up by an African, and in particular, a Ugandan?’ and that was a big challenge.
What’s interesting with cattle and herders is they are so engrained. People have been keeping cattle for a long time. And their communities still rely on cattle for milk, meat, hides from cattle.
When it came to a futuristic version of Uganda, the question was… ‘What if there is a powerful community, tribe or kingdom that didn’t only get meat, milk and hides from cattle, but also got power and technology from these cattle?’. That in this (futuristic) world, cattle are a source of food, clothes, technology and energy. That’s my spin on it. And I feel that’s a story a European will have a hard time doing because to them, cattle are not a significant part of their lifestyle as it is to Africans.
Which other Ugandans did you work with on this project and what were their roles?
I have a studio, and 5 of my teammates -Robin, Jemimah, Tim, William and Jonah all have Disney+ credits as well. And that is actually my achievement here. My achievement is not directing the film. My achievement is that I have been able to also get my teammates to get Disney+ credits. It’s always good to celebrate these things together. Food tastes better when you have company.
Robin was in the sound department, Jemimah was an animator, Tim was in the rigging and technical dept., Jonah was in the character modeling and props dept., and William was in the environment modeling.
What this allowed us to do was to have someone strategically placed across the pipeline in the development of Herderboy in order for that knowledge to be transferred to our own pipeline inside our studio. So, that was really cool.
Also, I have to mention Patrick idring (Salvado) and Omara Daniel who both played a role as voice actors. Blair Wonders played a lead character while Florence Kasumba (Black Panther) who is a Ugandan based in Germany who too played a lead role.
Masters Studio was involved (as a voice recording studio) as well as Jordan Bridges and Ssewa Ssewa (James Ssewakiryanga) who were involved in the music. So, I’m proud to say there are a few Ugandans listed in those credits.
What was it like working with Peter Ramsey, Tendayi Nyeke and Anthony Silverston?
It’s been quite a pleasure. Peter of course is a wealth of knowledge. Sitting down and talking to him about life. It’s just wisdom that oozes out of that man. It’s an enormous privilege. It’s good to meet these kinds of people, it’s wonderful when they are wonderful people too.
Tendayi, a powerful and cool woman. I learnt so much. We were in this journey together trying to figure out what it is we are trying to make.
Anthony represents Triggerfish, and they initiated this whole thing, so I have to give them credit. For me, I’m like a sponge in a desert. I will find any kind of water and I will soak it up. I think I have learnt a lot and some of the things I have learnt will probably reflect in a couple of years or months, coz it’s a lot of information.
What lessons do you as a Ugandan filmmaker learn from your experience on this project?
The Ugandan filmmaker needs to explore the possibilities of how we can tell our stories.
You have to explore different genres, different kinds of storytelling because there is potentially an audience out there for it and people are hungry. The stuff that is in Kizazi Moto, people have not seen it before. It’s going to open up like a whole other aspect of Africa that people are not thinking about.
I have learnt the importance of specialization and skills building. I have met many talented people who are good at something. In Uganda there is a tendency of wanting to do everything because you want your name to be on the credits. The idea that everything was done by you.
I have seen the advantage of having really skilled people. If you want to go down the route of being a concept artiste, go be good at that. If you want to be a good modeler, go be the best at it. We need all these people to make these high-quality films on the continent by ourselves eventually.
Know what you’re good at, get better at it. And know what you’re not good at so that you spend more time on what you’re good at. Don’t be a Jack of all trades and master of none.
How do you assess the animation industry in Uganda and what can be done to develop it further?
We are still in our infancy. We have a lot of self-taught people in their rooms trying to do stuff, which is great. But we should have more collaborations.
What can be done? Animation needs to be looked at as a potential driving force for hiring of people. There are lots of skilled artistes and animation has the ability of bringing artists and scientists together. I’m an artist but I have coders in my studio.
We also need a big shift in government policy. Animation should be viewed as a way to reach younger people and changing their mindset. If we embrace imagination and possibilities, our countries will grow faster. How do you want people to innovative if they can’t imagine? You are only giving them examples of things that are mundane. Give people a carte blanche, let them imagine.
Imagine a kid out there in the village watches cattle herders looking so cool. He will go back and look at cattle herding very differently. And also start asking himself… ‘Yeah, why don’t we try to do some of these things?’
What excites me with products like Kizazi Moto is that, in 20 years from now, filmmakers will have the advantage of having grown up with examples of black perspectives that weren’t shaped by colonialism only.
There is an argument that the Ugandan film industry’s slow growth is as a result of the reluctance by Ugandan filmmakers to think outside the box. The idea that Ugandan stories must all be told a certain way (the traditional way). What do you think?
It’s true, there is a conservative nature to our country and culture. They love safety.
I can talk about the comedy industry or music industry. They first need to see it to work somehow. Somebody else must take the risk. Then when they say ‘This comedian is now famous and everyone else has accepted them’, then they will say Ugandans are ready. Until that point, until someone does it, it won’t change.
There is comfort. People do soaps and dramas year in, year out. I think it’s time for us to explore other genres. Animation is not a genre, it’s a medium. I would love to see someone do a horror animation, love animation and Sci-Fi animation. For me, this is just a starting point.
It is necessary for a film like Kizazi Moto to come out for Ugandans and Africans to see the number of possibilities of how they can be portrayed. And hopefully, that will trigger something. If Kizazi Moto is successful, then conservative countries can say ‘Hey, maybe we need to adopt that stuff’.
