The film was a co-production of Les Armateurs, Trans Europe Film, Studio O,
France 3 cinéma,
RTBF and Exposure in France, Odec Kid Cartoons in Belgium and Monipoly in Luxembourg. The original French voice acting was performed by a cast of West African actors and schoolchildren and recorded in
Dakar. The English dubbing, also directed by Ocelot, was made in South Africa. A dub of the film in the
Swahili language was produced in Tanzania in 2009 through the help of the Danish Film Institute (DFI) and John Riber of Media for Development in Dar es Salaam.
Financing , director of
Kirikou and the Sorceress (here in Montreuil in 2012).
Kirikou and the Sorceress was a low-budget film: one of the producers,
Didier Brunner, explains this by the fact that the film was seen as an art/experimental project in the eyes of investors, as opposed to other more commercial projects (such as ''
A Monkey's Tale'' by
Jean-François Laguionie, which was closer to mainstream animated films like
Disney). The planned budget, although small, was still not easy to raise, and the process of gathering it took time. Two years were needed to gather sufficient financial support for the film, and four years were needed for its actual production. The final budget of the film amounted to a total of 25 million francs at the time, or 3.8 million euros. He found the initial idea in a collection of popular traditional stories from West Africa, compiled by Equilbecq, an administrator from the
French Colonies, in 1912. In one of the tales, a child speaks while still inside his mother's belly and demands to be born; she responds calmly, and the child is then born by himself and, afterwards, washes himself, and immediately goes to confront a sorceress who threatens the village. This prodigious child who inspired Kirikou is Izé Gani, made famous by the version given by
Boubou Hama. Michel Ocelot retained the beginning of the tale largely untouched, but made many modifications to the rest of the story, so that the final screenplay was largely his own, if influenced, invention. In the original tale, the child had just as many powers as the sorceress, whom he ultimately killed outright; additionally, here was no further mention of his mother after his birth. In the animated film, however, Kirikou questions more and heals the sorceress instead of killing her; the sorceress was described as very powerful (she was said to have devoured all of the warriors of the village and dried up their single spring), and Kirikou's mother retained a role after the hero's birth. Some narrative techniques, however, that Ocelot borrow devices from Western tales, including the aggression of Karaba by men and the thorn that gives her magical powers form another unique element of the film's screenplay; likewise, the singular kiss that transformed Kirikou into an adult at the end of the story, which Ocelot borrowed from narrative techniques in Western tales. The names "Kirikou" and "Karaba" are also Ocelot's inventions and do not have any particular meaning; however, the name Karaba can be related to
the fairy Carabosse. Ocelot insists that Kirikou, unlike the sorceress, has no special powers or magical talisman. The story is established in a week, followed by many rereadings. Michel Ocelot dedicates several months to the visual design of characters and key sets. However, some elements of this first version remain in the follow-up, such as the general appearance of the sorceress Karaba, whose numerous jewels around her neck, arms, and chest make her gestures more legible in the shadow version. These many adornments, as well as Karaba's complex hairstyle, make her harder to animate later, but they are retained as she is a central character in the story. The other characters undergo numerous tweaks due to animation constraints: for instance, a rounded braid on Kirikou's mother's forehead is removed, and the grandfather's headdress must be simplified. The grandfather's final headdress, reminiscent of those worn by
pharaohs of ancient Egypt, is actually inspired by a bronze from Benin dating back to the 16th century; likewise, Ocelot draws on statues from Sub-Saharan Africa and photographs of elderly men for the particular arrangement of his goatee. borrowing from several styles and adding an aggressiveness unique to the servants of an evil sorceress. For example, the appearance of the "fetching fetish" (responsible for bringing objects to Karaba) is inspired by the
Mumuye style, while the "speaking fetish" (the sorceress's spokesperson) draws from the
Ogoni style, while others, like the "sniffing fetish", are pure visual inventions.
Sound design Voices To complement the African identity of the film, the French voices are provided by Senegalese actors, and the English dubbing is done by black South Africans. The other voiceovers, however, do not carry any particular accent, as Ocelot wishes to limit the African accent to the Western languages actually spoken in Africa (i.e., French and English) without attempting to mimic an African accent in others. The film's voices are recorded in Senegal, in
Dakar. The film's original soundtrack uses instruments such as the
kora (for the birth sequence), the
tokoro flute (for the scene where Kirikou ventures into a zorilla's burrow), the
balafon, and the
sanza (for the spring scene). It is ultimately Mendy Boubacar, another singer living in Dakar, who performs the song in the film.
Michel Ocelot is constantly moving between the different studios to guide the teams and ensure the project's coherence. In his book
All About Kirikou published in 2003, he recalls the tumultuous production marked by tensions between the eight co-producers of the film, whose collaboration was originally due to financial constraints rather than a common artistic project.
Storyboard and setup Michel Ocelot himself creates an initial
storyboard that the producers find too inadequate; a second one is commissioned from professionals but is, conversely, too far removed from Ocelot's vision of his story, and unfeasible due to shadow and perspective effects incompatible with the project's financial constraints; ultimately, it is Ocelot's storyboard that is used. (1910) which inspired the visual universe of
Kirikou. The storyboard serves as the basis for the team responsible for setting up the film. The setup consists of preparing the work for the
shots of
Kirikou, providing the animators with all the necessary elements for executing the animation. Each shot, numbered, is the subject of a complete preparatory file, which mainly includes sound detection guidelines (which allow animators to animate the characters according to the pre-recorded dialogues), drawings of the set elements, the
framing in which the animation will later be drawn, precise indications of
camera movements, a frame-by-frame shooting sheet, and scaled drawings of the characters as they will later be executed by the animators, along with all indications about their expressions, attitudes, and gestures during the scene, their respective sizes, their distances from each other, etc. The setup team also ensures consistency among the shots of the film. The models are created at multiple scales (full size, half size, etc.) with varying levels of detail depending on whether they are intended for wide shots or close-ups; all drawings included in the files for a given scene are to the same scale to avoid size inconsistencies during the animation. The film's sets are first drawn in outline based on the still very general indications of the storyboard, then colored by the colorists, sometimes by hand (in
watercolor or
gouache), and sometimes using computer tools. Complex sets (like forests) are created using a series of individually drawn elements that are then assembled to form the final backdrop.
Animation The actual animation of
Kirikou takes place in two studios in Eastern Europe: Exist Studio in
Budapest, Hungary, and Rija Studio based in
Riga, Latvia. Exist Studio's work poses a problem in the early days, as the team is accustomed to small TV orders and is poorly paid; but they do produce some animations integrated into the film. The drawings are then scanned, and the animation is tested on a computer in a low-definition render, which allows for adjustments in the placements of the different elements of a scene and the durations of the animations. Once the drawings are made, they are checked and retouched if necessary to refine the animation. In addition to studio verifiers,
Computer shooting and post-production The computer shooting of the film takes place in two studios:
Les Armateurs, in
Angoulême, France, and
Odec Kid Cartoons, in
Brussels, Belgium. The Brussels animation studio
Odec Kid Cartoons handles just over half of the computer treatment of
Kirikou, along with post-production, editing, and sound mixing.
Distribution During production, European and American distributors are convinced that the film will not sell well. The film's producer, Didier Brunner, mentions in 2007 the concerns of commercial advisors at the time: Another argument raised by distributors concerns the nudity of the main character and scenes showing women with
bare breasts: they demand that Kirikou wear pants and women wear bras, but
Michel Ocelot refuses, particularly because he wants to provide a vision of Africa close to what he experienced during his childhood in Guinea. The sale of the film to foreign distributors does not pose a problem in most cases; when the film does not have a theatrical release, it is screened by French cultural centers. Takahata, who studied French and knows French culture well, translates Ocelot's
Kirikou novel into Japanese, writes the Japanese subtitles for the original version screenings, translates dialogues for the Japanese dubbing, and takes care of the casting. The theme song for the Japanese release is "Hadaka no Kiriku" by
Taeko Ōnuki. In 2007, the film was distributed in Mali, Niger, and Benin through the digital cinema association, which organizes itinerant screenings of the film in popular neighborhoods or villages. The family audience warmly welcomes this film and the subsequent works of Michel Ocelot. ==Reception==