F

OR an animation festival, perhaps it was fitting that the spectacle was drawn in such caricature: in a room to the left, a session on animation in virtual reality, games, and apps.

Simultaneously, in the room to the right: transformation in animation.

In the one room, you couldn’t move for the hipster beards on pale skin and the millennial’s version of a Dungeons and Dragons accent saying “rad” in response to all things deemed cool.

In the other room (and universe) — barely a white face to be seen.

Thandeka Zwana, a manager at the National Film and Video Foundation, put the cards on the table before she even introduced herself.

“This is the blackest forum I’ve ever seen at this animation festival — and that’s worrying,” she said, noting how it echoed the Hollywood Reporter’s facepalm moment of irony late last year when it got seven white guys to speak on the “diversity in animation” panel.

“My whole talk was prepared for a white audience, on how they could embrace transformation. Now I’m a bit stumped,” Zwana joked.

As she pointed out, many other countries are struggling with transformation too in the world of animation and allied arts.

But in South Africa, given our extreme version of a twisted history, transformation issues have their own character entirely. Not so our animation. “There is a distinctive American animation. Japanese and French too. But what does South African animation look like?” Zwana asked. “How do we differentiate ourselves from the world?”

The founder of the Digital