by Andrew "Kosmo" Spies
In the spirit of our adventure to discover talented artists worldwide, I’ve decided to take this journey up into sub-Saharan Africa. We venture forth to the country of Niger. A Moustapha Alassane directed his first animated movie Bon Voyage, Sim in 1966.
The animation is done black pencil only, and has a fantastic stylized feel to it. The movie tells the story of Sim a fictional president of a fictional country. Sim is the president of a country of “toad people”. The story of Sim comments on the lifestyles and ideals of many African leaders. Mixed with humour and his specific style of art the movie is a fantastic criticism of the abundant lives lived by leaders, in relation to the meager or poor lifestyles of the populations which live in countries like that of Sim’s country.
In 2001 Alassane directed an updated version of the same movie, Adieu, Sim. Remaining much the same movie but with a different ending and also employing a new technique to the animated film. Alassane like many African artists suffers from the invariable difficulty of finding funding for animations or works of art. Thus both the revised version and the original animation where created on little or no-budget.
Many countries in Africa suffer from this great divide in resources, many presidents and leaders of countries live lavish and extravagant lives whilst the people of their nations, die of starvation, malnutrition, disease and war. Not a pretty picture. Africa as a continent has more natural resources than anywhere else in the world. Yet people starve to death in the streets. You’d think if you held all the cards you’d be in pretty good shape. But to just get away from all the negativity, Africa does have some very positive ideas going for it. Diverse cultures with rich and colourful history, with some of the most creative minds on the planet hailing from the Dark Continent.
Moustapha Alassane is one of those creative minds, his work may not have a lot of glitz and glamour but it does have heart and soul. Unfortunately I was unable to find a clip of the revised version of the movie from 2001, I did however come across a video of the original.
On the next leg of our global search we will be moving north to Egypt and the Middle East.
In the spirit of our adventure to discover talented artists worldwide, I’ve decided to take this journey up into sub-Saharan Africa. We venture forth to the country of Niger. A Moustapha Alassane directed his first animated movie Bon Voyage, Sim in 1966.
The animation is done black pencil only, and has a fantastic stylized feel to it. The movie tells the story of Sim a fictional president of a fictional country. Sim is the president of a country of “toad people”. The story of Sim comments on the lifestyles and ideals of many African leaders. Mixed with humour and his specific style of art the movie is a fantastic criticism of the abundant lives lived by leaders, in relation to the meager or poor lifestyles of the populations which live in countries like that of Sim’s country.
In 2001 Alassane directed an updated version of the same movie, Adieu, Sim. Remaining much the same movie but with a different ending and also employing a new technique to the animated film. Alassane like many African artists suffers from the invariable difficulty of finding funding for animations or works of art. Thus both the revised version and the original animation where created on little or no-budget.
Many countries in Africa suffer from this great divide in resources, many presidents and leaders of countries live lavish and extravagant lives whilst the people of their nations, die of starvation, malnutrition, disease and war. Not a pretty picture. Africa as a continent has more natural resources than anywhere else in the world. Yet people starve to death in the streets. You’d think if you held all the cards you’d be in pretty good shape. But to just get away from all the negativity, Africa does have some very positive ideas going for it. Diverse cultures with rich and colourful history, with some of the most creative minds on the planet hailing from the Dark Continent.
Moustapha Alassane is one of those creative minds, his work may not have a lot of glitz and glamour but it does have heart and soul. Unfortunately I was unable to find a clip of the revised version of the movie from 2001, I did however come across a video of the original.
On the next leg of our global search we will be moving north to Egypt and the Middle East.
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