African Animated Tale, Zarafa, Hits International Film Festivals and French Theaters this Month

Zarafa, a hand-drawn animated tale directed by two French men, Rémi Bezançon and Jean-Christophe Lie is set to make a debut at the Berlin International Film Festival in February. In the same week, Zarafa will open in theaters in France.

Zarafa is based on a real giraffe named Zarafa, gifted to Charles X of France by the Viceroy of Egypt in the early 1800s.

Synopsis:

“Under a baobab tree, an old man tells the children that surround him a story: that of the unbreakable friendship between Maki, a child of ten years, and Zarafa, an orphan giraffe, gift of the Pasha of Egypt to King Charles X of France. Hassan, prince of the desert, is charged by the Pasha's license to deliver Zarafa to France but Maki, determined to do everything possible to thwart the mission and return the giraffe to his homeland, will follow the peril of his life because he promised Zarafa’s dead mother that he would do so.

During this arduous journey that will take them from Sudan to Paris, via Alexandria, Marseille and snow-covered Alps, they will share a thousand adventures and cross paths with the aeronaut Malaterre, the strange and peculiar cows, Sounh Mounh, and the pirate Bouboulina …”

Trailer: