Sembene! is an animated documentary about the life of Senegalese filmmaker and author Ousmane Sembène, directed by Jason Silverman

This innovative documentary combines original and archival footage with animation to tell the story of the great Senegalese filmmaker/novelist Ousmane Sembène, who used storytelling as a means of political resistance and cultural renaissance. By dedicating his life to creating meaningful, fully African works, Sembene created a potent counter-narrative to the alienating stories presented by outsiders from Europe and the U.S.

If you are not famaliar with Ousmane Sembène, he may be one of the greatest African filmmaker and artist of all time. The ‘Father of African Film’ begun his career in the 1960’s where the film industry was entirely dominated by American and European films. Until his death in 2007, Sembène created beautiful African films that defied Western ideology and principles of storytelling using African languages, actors and stories. Sembène remains a prolific storyteller transforming how the world sees Africa.

The feature documentary SEMBENE! reveals the mechanics of the modern, corporate- or government-controlled media, the radical possibilities of storytelling. Most of all, SEMBENE! celebrates an artist who, better than any, embodies the need to reclaim our stories from outsiders. Through Sembène’s life and work, the film will explore the global political-social forces that have shaped the past century, using an innovative blend of animation, original footage, scenes from his films and never-before-seen archival photographs and film in a way that will inspire young African, African-American and African-European youth who still absorb stories from a media system that doesn’t represent them.

Source: Line 25

iPhone App Websites are incredibly popular now in the webdesign community, they are cool, minimal, slick and functional. In this tutorial you will learn how to design and code an iPhone App Website in HTML5. That’s right HTML5! This tutorial will teach you some basics of HTML5 as well as some cool CSS3 effects. Once again don’t forget to share the results and join us in our Web Designer’s group.

It’s that time of the week where we inspire you with great digital projects either made by Africans or inspired by Africa. We are encouraged to see more and more beautiful work from all around the world that highlights Africa’s creativity, diversity and innovation. We want to also welcome new community members and encourage you to take a minute to join our great group of African digital artists on The Community. We are currently on the hunt for African web designers so if you are a web designer please join our Web Designer’s group since we are planning a feature on African Web Design. Once again you can find us at the usual places  Behance Circle, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr . Enjoy!!

Africa Vision

Mendigo Amigo

Mama Africa

Heart of Africa

Tussensessan

Misaonobaka

Paradigm84 Media Haus

Ananda Nahu

Tentacle Soup

Graham Tshabalala

Alp Germaner

Abre Etteh

Younes Ze

Niyi Okeowo

Francois van der Elst

We are pleased to feature this animation shorts and games designed for the Design Indaba Event that was held this year in February 24-26. Design Indaba is probably the biggest design event held in the continent with international artists, designers, and creators coming each year to South Africa to showcase their talents.
If you vist the ABSA Design Fights website you have a chance to pick your fight against, VInnie “The Client” Jones,  Rusty “Technology”,  Tiny “The Budget” Kat, Danny “Deadline”, and Self Doubt. This game is every designer’s dream to take out their frustrations. We recommend to take a break and play whenever you get frustrated.  Make sure to check it out.

Found via - Between 10and5

A few months ago we featured African children animated series Tinga Tinga Tales. Scheduled to go on air in February in the UK, Tinga Tales is one of the most ambitious animation projects that has taken place in East Africa. Showcasing the talent of local artist, Tinga Tinga Tales promises to be an inspiring African made animation series that will bring more attention to the African animation industry. We have for you screenshots and video of the spanking new animation. We absolutely love it! Bright colors and patterns, beautiful characters and overall just awesome! Enjoy!!!

We recently featured Luma Studios and we are pleased to showcase their spanking new showreel for 2010 for their Luma Arcade division. Enjoy. Share your thoughts.

Otobong Nkanga (Born in Kano, Nigeria) performer and Visual Artist
Otobong Nkanga works in a broad spectrum of media, including performance, installations, photography, drawing and sculpture. According to Nkanga, the various media she employs “interrogate our mental and physical identities in varied environments and contexts.” Thus taking inspiration from her surroundings, especially architecture, the artist creates work that can be placed in varied environments and are often fragments of a multimedia work in progress.

Her work is a result of observation and sensations of the everyday influences in our social developments/changes in our environment and culture. ” In my pluri-disciplinary approach, the individual is constantly confronted with its own fragility. It puts forward personal autobiographical elements which accentuates and exposes the frailty and instability of man in its environment. “

Nkanga began her art studies at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and later continued in Paris at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and has finished her Masters Program at Dasarts, Amsterdam.

Every week African Digital Art showcases digital projects made by African artists or projects influenced by Africa.  It is exciting to see African projects that displays and encourages creativity. Inspiration is a key component in the design process so we searched the web for the best projects from a variety of genres. We are here to promote your work so don’t forget to send us your recommendations. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr so post your projects and we’d be happy to share.

Satyaki Ghosh

The Coke World Cup

Manu Kongolo

Native Yard

Africa

David Maclennan

Richard Davis

Land Rover Savannah

KYK

Kilimanjaro Beer

Jess Whitehead

Jim Chuchu

Source: Vectortuts+

In this tutorial you will learn how to create Lebron James cartoon character in a retro style vector. Through the tutorial you will learn the professional method for creating cartoon vector illustration using Adobe Illustrator. This is also a great exercise in using the pen tool.

We are pleased to feature this talented illustration studio from Egypt, Aiman Studio. Named after the Egyptian artist, Aiman, the studio produces 3D animations and illustrations of life-like and colorful characters. Aiman Studios provides Arabic and Middle Eastern content for cartoon animation shows, commercials and tv shows. The illustrations done by Aiman are certainly inspiring for anyone who is interested in character design. Make sure to check out the portfolio on deviant and join us on our African Animators group.