Director – Comfort Arthur – 2016 – Ghana – 3m 36s
*****
In the programme Today, African Animation – A Tribute To The African Continent – from the Annecy 2021 Animation Festival hybrid and online editions
This is structured around a reading of a poem by a girl whose mother gives her a Black Barbie doll for her birthday. She hates it – “I want the white one”. Using a variety of 2D animation styles and the occasional bit of human pixilation, Arthur produces simple, arresting images of black girls alienated from the physical basics of their existence by a society that constantly tells them white skin colour is significant and black skin and curly hair is something to deny. The film maker lifts all this above the level of mere polemic by making her images, some of which are no more complex than animated child’s drawings, constantly arresting, doing both her cause and the medium in which she’s expressing it proud.
This film is not suitable for children.
Festivals
2021
Annecy Animation Festival special hybrid and online editions:
Monday, June 14th to Saturday, June 19th.
Festival Trailer:
2020
Annecy Animation Festival special online edition:
Monday, June 15th to Tuesday, June 30th.
The seventh of 13 Original Short Films in Annecy’s selection for We Are One: A Global Film Festival.
Donations to UN Foundation (UNF) to raise funds for COVID-19 relief efforts.
Festival trailer: