13 August 2013
South African animated 3D movie Adventures in Zambezia won the “best feature for children” award at the 21st Anima Mundi international animation festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last week.
The award is the latest in a string of successes for the debut feature from Cape Town-based Triggerfish Animation Studios, which followed up with its second feature film, Khumba, earlier this year.
Last year, Adventures in Zambezia became the first African 3D feature animation to be nominated – for best music and best voice artist – for the Hollywood-based Annie Awards, the most prestigious in the animated movie industry.
It was also named best South African feature film at the 2012 Durban International Film Festival, and best animation at the 2012 African Movie Academy Awards.
According to the National Film and Video Foundation, the film has been sold to over 40 territories, and within 12 weeks of its release in five of those territories had sold over 1-million tickets, notably reaching number 2 at the box office in Russia and Germany.
On Wednesday, the film will be widely released – at 477 screens – in France, having been snapped up by a French distributor, along with Khumba, at the 2013 Cannes International Film Festival in May.
Adventures in Zambezia tells the story of a young falcon that leaves his home and his father in the desert to make a life for himself in the big city of Zambezia – only to find that surviving the urban jungle can be more difficult than living in the wild.
Directed by Wayne Thornley, it features an all-star cast including Abigail Breslin, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nemoy, Richard E Grant and Samuel L Jackson.
SAinfo reporter
