A Nigerian animation studio publically challenged Disney Animation. They then made something together.

Disney’s studios are known for not soliciting outside help or talent for their projects or supporting other studios. It wasn’t something that the team at a Nigerian animation studio knew at the time, or even cared out.

In fact, it was during a BBC interview that the studio did a few years back saying that it wanted to “kick Disney’s arse” when it came to storytelling that got Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative Jennifer Lee “intrigued.”

The rest is history as both Kugali Media and the Walt Disney Animation Studios have teamed up to create and distribute Iwaju, a show is set in Lagos and steeped in science-fiction and explores deep themes of class, innocence and challenging the status quo–akin to what Disney storytelling is already like.

For more about how the partnership began and Iwaju was born and supported, enjoy our interview with Tolu Olowofoyeku, a co-founder of Kugali Media and a cultural consultant on Iwaju.

Why do you think Disney Animation and Jennifer Lee want to engage in a partnership?

Jennifer Lee and Disney Animation are genuine storytellers who want to tell amazing stories. This is why Jenn was excited when she first saw the BBC story about us. Hearing the passion in the way we talked about storytelling, she felt she had just discovered kindred spirits. I have heard Jenn talk about telling the stories of the world by the people of the world, so discovering African storytellers like Kugali presented a great opportunity for collaboration.

What was it like to collaborate with Disney? How did they offer their support in telling IWAJU?

Disney Animation has 100 years of experience in telling stories in a way that both adults and children can enjoy. We had a story with some serious themes that adults can engage with, and Disney’s experience in how best to present that story to children was invaluable. It was also a truly collaborative experience as Disney Animation gave us the opportunity to hold leadership roles in creating this story, while their expertise enabled our storytelling. This brought the best of both worlds as our young studio had a lot of fresh ideas, and Disney Animation had the know-how on how to actually pull them off. Working with genuinely nice people at Disney Animation made the process much so enjoyable for us, and I’m happy to say I made some great friends along the way.

I got to visit Kenya last summer and got to meet a lot of African filmmakers. What is it do you think about storytelling Africa that is appealing to Western audiences?

Storytelling from places different than one’s own home tends to be interesting because it feels fresh and different from what one has gotten accustomed to. I grew up enjoying Japanese anime and American movies more than the movies produced in my own country, and I know many people that watch Spanish or Indian movies even though they don’t speak the language. Variety is the spice of life, and I think that having all the different flavors of storytelling will only enrich the global storytelling landscape.

Share more about cultural authenticity. How was your culture shared as a setting and characters in IWAJU?

For our story, authenticity simply meant sticking to what Lagos and Nigeria actually are like in real life. That meant making sure the characters speak exactly the same way we speak in Lagos, dress the same way we dress in Lagos, and even though it is set roughly 100 years in the future, keeping all the core elements that characterize Lagos today rather than creating a dystopian version of the city. This also meant not importing elements from the Western world or even from other African countries into our story, so that every aspect of it feels recognizably Lagosian. Even the gestures and facial expressions are specifically Nigerian. When people in Japan, India or America create stories for a global audience, they keep everything authentic to their own realities, and global audiences enjoy the content for that. There is no reason it would be different with us, even if the world is more familiar with stories from the aforementioned places than with stories from places like Nigeria.

===

Iwaju is now streaming on Disney+.

Our special thanks to Tolu Olowofoyeku for contributing to this story!