Culture news After Marvel’s Wakanda, this new sci-fi series highlights Afrofuturism on Disney+
A new movement is gaining more and more momentum in science fiction. The release of Black Panther and its fictional nation of Wakanda highlighted Afrofuturism in 2018. Five years later, Disney+ is once again interested in this sub-genre of SF with a series animated series scheduled for spring 2024.
T’Challa, played by the late Chadwick Boseman, became with the cinema release in 2018 of Black Panther the figurehead of a movement for the emancipation of African cultures through a booming sub-genre. Afrofuturism is an “artistic movement and aesthetic that redefines the culture and conception of the “black community” via elements of science fiction and Afrocentrism in a non-Western framework”. The term first appeared in 1993
The futuristic novel “Tè Mawon” published in March 2022 and written by science fiction author Michael Roch is the perfect representative of this contemporary movement. This literary work depicts a cyberpunk Caribbean universe in which the megalopolis of Lanvil has become the refuge of all the world’s migrants and a powder keg on the verge of exploding. Tè Mawon stands out from traditional SF through the use of a futuristic Creole which demands from its readers constant attention to grasp all the subtleties of a singular phrasing. It is now Disney+’s turn to be the standard-bearer of Afrofuturism.
An Afrofuturist series on Disney+
Iwájú is an original animated series set in a futuristic version of the economic and cultural capital of Nigeria… Lagos. Produced by the pan-Africanist company Kugali Media, this Disney+ Original draws on the talents of director Olufikayo Ziki Adeola and the cultural background of Toluwalakin Olowofoyeku to transport subscribers to a transfigured African continent where technology and tradition intertwine to give birth to the Afrofuturism of which the series aims to be the new representative.
This thrilling coming-of-age story follows Tola, a wealthy island girl, and her best friend, Kole, a self-taught tech expert, as they uncover the secrets and dangers hidden in their worlds different. -Walt Disney Animation Studios
The voice cast of the mini-series Iwájú:
- Simisola Gbadamosi
- Dayo Okeniyi
- Femi Branch
- Siji Soetan
- Weruche Opia
The animated miniseries Iwájú releases April 3 on Disney+.