Yellow fever

Direction: Ng’endo Mukii

 

Synopsis

An exploration of ‘feeling a little bit uncomfortable.’ I am interested in the concept of skin and race, and what they imply; in the ideas and theories sown into our flesh that change with the arc of time. In my film, I focus on African women’s self-image, through memories and interviews; using mixed media to describe our almost schizophrenic pursuit of globalised beauty.

 

Duration: 7 minutes

Year: 2012

Short documentary film

Country and Language

Kenya
English

English subtitles

Production

Ng’endo Studios

Ng’endo Mukii

Ng’endo Mukii is an award-winning film director most well known for ‘Yellow Fever,’ her documentary-animation exploring Western influences on African women’s ideals of beauty. At the prestigious Design Indaba conference she presented her talk, ‘Film Taxidermy and Re-Animation,’ proposing the use of animation as a means of re-humanizing the ‘indigenous’ image; a people whose ‘real’ image is burdened with stereotypes of being the ‘Other.’ Ng’endo is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and holds a Master of Arts in Animation from the Royal College of Art. She is an alumni of the beautiful Berlinale Talents, the distinguished Urucu Media REALNESS Screenwriter’s Residency, and the incredible Goethe Institute Bahia Vila Sul artists’ residency. She is a Professor of the Practice at SMFA at TUFTS University in Boston, a writer on Netflix first African animated series, Supa Team 4. She is the writer-director of Enkai, an episode on the Disney+ animated anthology, Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire.