for the fourth time ASIFA Egypt sharing the happiness of the animation with the fans around the world. for the second time in Bibliotheca Alexandrina, ASIFA Egypt celebrates the International Animation Day in 23th of October 2011 in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina- Alexandria- Egypt.

Earlier this October, ASIFA Egypt taken part with its programs in this event in China, Algeria and Cape Verde.. and later in Colombia. Some members of the African chapter of ASIFA orgianzed shows in Mali, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon.

this year we host in Bibliotheca Alexandrina the French animation as guest country, in attendance of Lisa Klemenz, the french animator.

waiting for you!

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Animation Day in Nariobi/ Kenya 

OCT 23rd 2011. As part of the Kenya International Film Festival (KIFF) 2011, ASIFA Egypt screened Animation from Africa: Celebrating 75 years of African animation at the Shimei House venue in Kenya. The event was organized by ASIFA Egypt member Kwame Nyong'o on a lovely Sunday afternoon in the great climate of Nairobi. Children, adults, students, jury members, festival directors and animation fans from all walks of life, and from all over the region, were there to add spice to this growing African film festival.

Animation by children is a new gender of animated films, comes up with the new era of digital media. Many animators around the world dedicate their efforts to teach kids how to make their own stories in animating way.

ASIFA Egypt will organize with Bibliotheca Alexandrina two forums of animated films made  by children, under supervision of adult facilitators.

The first  forum will take place on  26th of June, gathering trainers and kids who made films in the show. the guests of the forum, Ahmed Al Ashwah, ASIFA member and director of A4KIDS studio, and Shreef Al Sayed, director of awarded film with children.

The second forum will be held on the 3rd of July, hosting the Spanish Animation Director: Coké Riobóo, to show and talk about his experience in working with children.

Don't miss it with your kids!

 Libya -one of the most famous cartoonists in the Arab world; the Libyan artist, Mohamed Al-Zawawi, died Sunday 5th of June 2011 at age 75. He considered to be the father of Libyan comics, cartoon, and animation since 60s.

Born in Benghazi 1936, 1,050 kms east of Tripoli,Al-Zawawi, who founded his own satirical arts school with a reputation that has spread beyond the borders of his country, was endowed with great abilities and great talent for satirical ideas about the contemporary socio-political issues.

Many Libyan and Arab artists and satirists were trained at his school, and Libyans described Al-Zawawi as an artist who has touched their daily concerns.

The deceased began his artistic career in 1963, working as a director and cartoonist in the Art de la Radio magazine in Tripoli, where he published his first drawings.He had an extremely lively and accomplished cartooning style, which he passed onto various students and future cartoonists at a satirical arts school he founded in Tripoli. He was well-regarded in the region and published outside of Libya given various opportunities. He engendered to express a common man's position in his editorial work.

The first steps towards animation in Libya were made by Al-Zawawi, who was asked by the national Libyan TV in the beginning of 1980s to make a series of animated episodes. One episode named "Hajj Nakad" on which he worked with the collaboration of a studio in England, and another 45 minutes film "Joha's Diary" which he finished in Japan. The episodes in a critical manner discussed the Libyan society.

reference:afriquejet.com

On the 4^th of March, the Board of ASIFA elected an Egyptian animator to create the poster for the 10th International Animation Day 2011―their first time choosing an artist from Africa or the Arab world to achieve that honour.

This election has symbolic meaning, and not only because of the fact that Ihab Shaker (b. Cairo, 1933) ―the chosen artist―is really a great artist, or just in solidarity with the peaceful victory of the Egyptian revolution of January 25, against the dictatorship, which was described by President Obama as “inspiring”. On top of all this, an Egyptian was elected to design the annual poster of the international day of the animated art to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Egyptian animation, celebrating the first public showing of locally-made animation in the whole of Africa.

Ihab Shaker directed many animated films in Egypt beginning in 1968 (The Bottle) and then moved to France, where he met and worked with the French pioneer Paul Grimault (Walt Disney's French and equally celebrated counterpart, as Shaker addressed in one of his interviews) who helped Shaker to direct his work entitled Un Deux Trois, which earned Shaker the prestigious Prix de Qualité (1973). Later, Shaker became the first Egyptian and African member of ASIFA. Then he returned home, though he would revisit France intermittently. Once he was a member of the jury in Annecy (1993).

ASIFA launched a global event to celebrate the art of animation in 2002. October 28th was proclaimed as « International animation day » (IAD), commemorating the first public performance of Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique in Paris in 1892.