SA gets two Emmy nods

South Africa is having a good year at the International Emmy Awards: The River was nominated as best telenovela and now Zog, animated in Cape Town by Triggerfish for the UK’s Magic Light Pictures, is up for best kids’ animation.

Codirected by two-time Oscar nominee Max Lang (The Gruffalo and Room On The Broom) and multiaward-winning Daniel Snaddon (Stick Man), Zog is competing against Grizzy and the Lemmings (France), Jorel’s Brother (Brazil) and Lamput (India).

The winner will be announced on March 31 in Cannes, France.

Zog has already won Best Animation at the Shanghai International TV Festival and the Audience Award for ages three to six at New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Triggerfish chief executive Stuart Forrest said: “We’re delighted. Congratulations to Magic Light, Max, Daniel and everyone who helped bring Zog to life.

“We hope this latest nomination encourages more South Africans to try out animation using our free digital learning platform and upcoming 10-second animation competition.”

Zog is the keenest but clumsiest pupil in his class at Dragon School, where he longs to win a gold star as he learns how to fly, roar and breathe fire. He keeps meeting a kindly young girl who patches up his bumps and bruises, but can she help him with his trickiest school assignment yet: capturing a princess?

The short film is based on Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s much-loved 2010 picture book, which sold over 1.5 million copies and won the Galaxy National Children’s Book of the Year Award in the UK.

Hugh Skinner (Fleabag) plays the clumsy dragon; 2019 Olivier award winner Patsy Ferran (Jamestown) is the kindly young girl; Kit Harington (Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) is the bumbling knight Sir Gadabout; Sir Lenny Henry (Broadchurch) is the narrator and Tracey Ullman is Madame Dragon.

Zog premiered on BBC last December to five-star reviews, 8.8 million viewers and the highest share (37%) of any programme across Christmas week on British television.

In SA, it premiered at the Cape Town International Animation Festival in March and on Showmax in August.

Zog is the fourth in a string of BBC Christmas adaptations animated by Triggerfish for Magic Light, following the multiaward-winning Stick Man (2015) and The Highway Rat (2017), as well as the Oscar-nominated Roald Dahl adaptation Revolting Rhymes (2016), which won the International Emmy in 2018.

Before teaming up with Triggerfish, Magic Light also made three previous Donaldson-Scheffler adaptations: the Oscar-nominated The Gruffalo (2009) and Room On The Broom (2012) as well as Annecy winner The Gruffalo’s Child (2011).

All seven family classics are now streaming on Showmax.

The Triggerfish 10-second Animation Challenge is open for entries. Aspiring animators have until Thursday, October 31 to create 10-second character animations, then post them to Facebook with the tag @triggerfishacademy.

The winner of the 18-and-under and 19-to-25 categories will each take home a Wacom Cintiq 16-inch drawing tablet, valued at nearly $1 000 (R15 000).

Find out more at https:// www.triggerfish.com/academy/competition/.