Seventies Afrofunk and the Future
Inside the Nigerian–South African movie 'Crocodile Dance.'
Welcome! It’s time for a new issue of the Animation Obsessive newsletter. And today’s story is unusual for us: it’s dedicated to a movie we’ve never watched.
Its title is Crocodile Dance, and it’s still in the works. Since February, when it hit our radar, it’s had our attention. This is a feature with roots in Nigeria and South Africa, and its co-director is Shofela Coker. You may know his gorgeous Moremi from the Kizazi Moto anthology — back in 2024, we interviewed him about it.
Buzz around Crocodile Dance really grew at Annecy last month. Shofela, Nadia Darries (co-directing with him) and their producer delivered a 10-minute pitch so good that it won a prize — plus a Variety spotlight. We were in the audience, and impressed.
Like Moremi, this project draws from Nigerian art forms and stories. It stars Roukia, a griot and a mother. Her town is cursed — and her musical gift recedes, and the water rises, and her husband Biokun is chosen as a sacrifice to appease the goddess Mami Wata. He’ll become a crocodile, dance with Mami Wata and be consumed.
Roukia “must reclaim her voice to break a generational curse and save herself and her family.” It’s a story from her perspective, from what the team calls a “feminine lens.”1
In the mix is Nigerian dance (traditional and modern), and music from across time. Again like Moremi, this is Africanfuturist cinema that combines many eras and ideas. The film’s official mood playlist has current Nigerian music (Ojapiano) and vintage Afrofunk (Soul Makossa), and much more. Even Nujabes shows up.
We spoke with Shofela and Nadia during Annecy, one day after their pitch. It was a main goal of ours at the festival. The meeting took place on the fourth floor of the Imperial Palace hotel, in a room set aside for press interviews. The window was open, letting in June air and light, and sometimes notes from a saxophone on the grounds below.
For around half an hour, Shofela and Nadia went deep into their reference points and creative philosophies, into the meaning of Crocodile Dance and more. The project is still early — but we came away excited. Find the conversation (edited for length, flow and clarity) below.
John (Animation Obsessive): How do you feel after having done the presentation?
Shofela Coker: Relieved, honestly. After the ceremony last night, we won the MIFA pitch prize, which is fantastic. We’re feeling very grateful. And, mostly, this feels like impetus. Nadia, what were your exact words this morning?
Nadia Darries: After the pitch and the heaviness of everything, I felt, “Now, go forth.” [laughs]
John: It was a really impressive pitch. What did it mean to you to choose this protagonist?
Shofela: I think the protagonist chose… us? Me? The story started with me. I think the feeling was what drove the script.
It started from a story I read when I was a teenager, called No More the Wasted Breed by Femi Osofisan. That’s the way I experienced the original folktale first, and it’s stayed with me since then. [The film is] very loosely inspired by the folktale, based on that.
The feeling I’m talking about was… when I went back to Nigeria a few years ago, I reconnected with the land, specifically. And that feeling drove the story for Crocodile Dance. Roukia came from that feeling. She’s been stuck in my head and my heart for a while.
John: What are you hoping to accomplish with this film — both of you?
Shofela: That’s a lofty question. You go first, Nadia.
Nadia: I’d say that… there are stories about African women and Africans in general, but they’re often portrayed from almost a caricatured perspective of Africans.
This is a very intimate story about an African woman, and we’re diving into the nuances of an African woman’s experience. You know, a musician, a struggling mother, someone who’s grappling with power. It’s all universal themes, but we want to carry across the nuanced experiences of an African woman.
I really want people to watch this, no matter where the person is from, and see themselves in her journey — and, at the same time, I want Africans to watch this and feel seen.
Shofela: I don’t know what more to add to that. I think, specifically, the feeling I was talking about earlier was related to power. Nadia’s described the film as a “power story.” We pitched it as a love story with a monster twist, but Nadia always describes it as a woman’s relationship to her power.
In that sense, it’s power related to fear. For me, the kernel of the story was how this character [dealt with fear] — and how I’ve dealt with fear my whole life. How you understand yourself in context of this fear of the unknown, the future. Roukia kind of characterizes that feeling.
That’s what I hope people take from it. That they also see themselves in that idea of how to… not just cope, but awaken themselves, so they don’t always shudder in fear of the future. Because I was that way. And maybe still a little bit.
John: This film builds on the aesthetics of Moremi. I’m wondering, what are some of the ways that you plan to expand past Moremi in the ambition and style?
Shofela: I would say, first of all… Nadia is my co-director who I met in the last couple years here at Annecy. I feel like she’s a secret weapon on this film. Nadia is a musician, and everything she does is musically driven, and this film is musically driven. A lot of the concepts, storytelling, the cutting patterns that we envisage for the film have to do with that. The rhythms in terms of visuals, yes, but [also] the feeling of the film.
Working with Nadia on the animatic in the last few months has been a revelation, a step up. I really loved working on Moremi — but that’s what I feel, for me, is going to change the process, in a way that will allow us to achieve a more clear picture of what we’re setting out to do, from the origins.
Nadia: I didn’t work on Moremi, but I am a fan [laughs]. And I’ve heard a lot about it. On Moremi, Shofela was quite inspired by traditional printmaking, and you saw that shape language in the film. And that marriage between 2D and 3D.
With this film, we’re trying to push all of that even further, and push the boundary a bit more on how 2D and 3D meet. At the same time, the aesthetic we’re aiming for in certain parts of the film is almost like a masquerade, which will involve a play of graphic shapes and color.
We’re excited about reaching that technical boundary — we’ll discover things along the way, and I think we’re going to be inspired by the challenges we face in the technical cases.
Shofela: I can add to that a little bit. I’ve been an art director and a character designer, a visual developer, for quite a long time. And a lot of the stuff that I developed with the team on Moremi, the stuff that I pull into my own personal aesthetics — like Nadia said, it’s printmaking a lot, because I’m inspired by the Southwestern Nigerian printmaking practice adire. And Southwestern Nigerian sculpture styles, like Olowe of Ise and Lamidi Fakeye.
I want those aesthetics to be on film and in animation because I feel like they’re inherently beautiful and have a place to exist in cinema. And they have an inherent poetic sensibility that, I think, lends itself to animation — because there’s an abstraction you can do with animation. That’s something I really want to push with Crocodile Dance.
John: I’ll also ask about the Nigerian music that you announced at the presentation — you’re using 1970s funk and more contemporary electronic sounds. I’m really interested by that blend and how you came upon that.
Shofela: I mentioned earlier the film is musically driven, and from very early on in script development we’ve been working with a composer — first a Nigerian composer, and then a French composer — to develop themes and compositions that we’ve incorporated into the animatic. Just to explore character, explore scenes.
That has to do with a blend of these concepts you mentioned. Specifically, I’m inspired by 1970s Afrofunk. It’s the music of my parents’ generation, and I’m always interested in how their generation’s music defined Nigeria, and how that relates to my generation growing up in Nigeria, and how to bridge that gap.
I got to know my parents over the pandemic very well. Of course, they’re my parents, so I know them — but as people. That dialogue was established with them, and I’m very interested in continuing to explore that in whatever art I do. It just happens to be Crocodile Dance.
John: You’ve mentioned that you want the film’s design to help communicate the story. Could you talk about how that’s going to play out?
Shofela: With this film, I’ve always had sequences in my head that drive the emotion in terms of the visuals, and in terms of the poetry of those images. I always use a very short, sweet example: Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.
There’s a melancholic poetry to that film. It’s not necessarily a north star for us, or a perfect reference, but there’s something about the quality of imagery, in the chiaroscuro, the color palettes that he used. I think there’s a lot to learn from.
So, in designing this film, one of the things I’ve done with the storyboard is pick key sequences or frames and build the lighting. Which is fairly uncommon in animation, because storyboards are fast and loose. The idea is to build a lot of that information in right from the start, because it’s been sitting in my head that way for a while.
Nadia: How do you tell a story? Is it the script? Yes. Until you start boarding — then it’s the boards. And then you start drawing, illustrating. Then it becomes that. Literally every component of the frame tells the story.
So, we’re telling a story of tradition-meets-modern, in a way. And it’s interesting that the traditional sculptures and patterns I’ve seen — you know, it’s very graphic. A lot of modern-tech stuff is also quite graphic. There’s almost an organic, intuitive marriage of those components.
Even in that alone, it tells a tale of time: what kind of time we’re sitting in, how an old way has come to meet a new way. All of that plays a part in the shape language.
Jules (Animation Obsessive): I wanted to ask — does the film have a north star, since you mentioned that earlier?
Shofela: I think it’s always been Roukia, for me. Because she embodies a part of myself that I’ve been very keen to explore for a long time. She is the north star.
John: I’m wondering also about the combination of modern and traditional dance, which I found — just in the animatic — very fascinating. I’m always interested when people put dance front and center in animation, and that seems to be the case here.
Shofela: I mean, the film is titled Crocodile Dance.
Everyone: [laughs]
John: Exactly, exactly.
Shofela: It’d be kind of disappointing if there wasn’t any.
I’m a lifelong lover of dance forms in general. I grew up with traditional dance — Yoruba dance, in particular — in my sphere of consciousness. I like the idea of combining that with modern dance because that’s something that happens in Nigeria today. And I want that to be reflected in the art I produce, because I find it beautiful.
But also it lends itself to this story. It says something about the masculinity in the film, and its relationship to femininity. I think that’s where I mostly want to explore that divide between the traditional and the modern aspect. I know I’m sounding very abstract in this entire conversation, but I’m hoping that a lot of it makes sense.
Nadia: A big component of this film is ritual, and transcending mental and emotional spaces. And a big part of ritual is dance — let’s just call it movement. Dance is a designed movement, in a way.
So, that’s what we’re doing. It’s another form of design. We’re inspired by almost the same things that we’re inspired by in other parts of the film, in terms of design. And we’re working with a Nigerian choreographer. Oluwabukunmi…
Shofela: … Olukitibi. We just started working with her.
The original plan with this film was always to try and do that early. So we could shoot performance reference, but also collaborate with her — or him; it just turns out to be her in this case — to design the dances for Roukia and the male character Biokun, who does the Crocodile Dance.
John: How are the duties split up between the two of you?
Shofela: Everything on Nadia’s plate. [laughs]
Nadia: [laughs] I’m like… I suck with art direction. I’m not a good designer. My specialty is, I was a character animator.
In terms of our collaboration, obviously, Shofela wrote the script. But, whenever we engage with the story, we both engage. It feels like we’re both kids on the playground, playing in the sandpit.
In terms of the other stuff, with my animation background, it’s timing and body performance and stuff like that.
Shofela: Nadia is also a very good editor, so she’s handling a lot of that, especially for the animatic. My background is art direction, character design, visual development. So, I will probably handle a lot of that stuff. But we still share a sensibility, so Nadia’s decisions weigh heavily on the film.
John: What’s the whole plan for the production? Like, where the main studios are located, and what the timeline is that you’re expecting?
Shofela: Lucan Studio in Cape Town is most likely going to handle pre-production. Right now, we’re pretty far along in development, and we have like 20 minutes of the animatic. That was handled on my side of things — with my brother’s and my production company [Coker CoOp] — working with Nadia and a storyboarder.
Coker CoOp is based in Atlanta in the US, but we have a little subsidiary in Nigeria that we set up at the beginning of the year. We would like some of the production to come out of that studio, in terms of how we interface with Nigerian artists and production people. And Nadia and the producers are South African, so it’s a Nigerian–South African co-production.
Our budget is proposed at 9-to-10 million US dollars. So, we’re looking for co-producers in France. It’s a 24-month period of production that we’re looking at, when we actually finish pre-production. We’ll start in late 2026, if we can.
John: I don’t know if you can talk about it yet, maybe in general terms, but how has the response been to your presentation at Annecy? Obviously, you won the award.
Nadia: I mean, it’s been good.
Obviously, Shofela, you’ve been writing this for a while — we have, like, version eight of the script. But this is the start of our journey as a collective, in a way. Outwardly doing something together related to the project. It’s been so well received, so we’re really grateful. All of that adds a bar to the battery that powers our… journey [laughs].
Jules: We’ve been speaking to other filmmakers here, and they’ve talked about how Annecy’s created an ecosystem that can start a film and then keep propelling it along the process. Do you feel that Annecy is offering you a unique opportunity to do this?
Shofela: Yeah. I’ve worked in the US industry in animation — and, before that, in video games — for a while. And I’ve never really seen a path as an independent filmmaker in the US system. That’s for many reasons.
This, like Nadia was saying earlier, is like a great bar in the battery for our engine. But it’s more than that. The relationship I’ve had with the festival over the last several years, with Kizazi Moto, meeting people here — that’s how I met Nadia two years ago.
And, obviously, the actual logistics of the thing. MIFA and the support from them, and the ability to meet co-producers and engage in different ways of making animation — different pipelines, but also production methods. Because our budget is 9-to-10 million. In the US, that kind of production doesn’t happen.
[A budget] doesn’t need to be a hundred million dollars to produce a film like this. I’m interested in making a film that’s bespoke, that is worked on by people who care about the film in particular, and building a collective trust together. And, of course, we’re both African, so we want to try to invest in the creative capital of the place we’re from, and try to engage with as many artists as we can from that region.
Working in Europe allows us to do that, because there are tax incentives, partnerships, co-productions.
Nadia: I also want to say, it’s just nice to know that there are so many people crazy enough to want to do this.
Everyone: [laughs]
Nadia: You feel a little less alone. It’s really powerful. Going back to the analogy, coming here does fill that battery of, “It’s okay, even though it’s kind of crazy. It’s acceptable in some places.” It fills the bar until you get to your next year, once you’re completely depleted and you start questioning yourself too much, and you come here [again], and you’re like, “Ah, now it’s okay.” [laughs]
John: [laughs] This one is for Shof, specifically. I was wondering, do you see a throughline from Liyana — Jules and I are very big fans of your work on that — to Moremi and now to Crocodile Dance?
Shofela: Yes, I do. And thank you guys for watching that film — it’s very special to me. It’s like the best thing I’ve done in my life, for many other reasons besides the actual work of it: the relationship to the film, the people involved with it.
That film taught me a big lesson about how to produce artwork with people you care about, and a way to interact with audiences. I think that’s the ethos we’re trying to build with Crocodile Dance. A similar idea of creating a film that supports people in a way that’s not just a job, and [that] interacts with audiences in a way that is beyond just the box office.
I hope, with this film, I’ll be able to go to Nigeria or parts of Africa — or parts of the world, really — and give back. Do workshops, and provide a pathway for people not just to make films like this, but to discuss themes in the film. You know, it’s about music and dance, and I want it to be more than just a film in that sense.
I think that’s the throughline I see. You could see some of the visual stuff, but it’s more the other stuff for me, actually.
John: That’s fascinating. I’ll wrap up by asking what’s next after you guys get some sleep, get back home and calm down from all this.
Nadia: Um… work.
Everyone: [laughs]
Nadia: I’m directing two projects at the moment, and the teams have just been kind to me, being over here in Annecy.
Also, you know how it is in Annecy. You get so pumped up. I’m so pumped up to jump straight into working on the animatic and the story. So, we’ll be discussing how we can make that happen sooner rather than later.
Shofela: It was like 12 o’clock and we were ready to go home last night, after dinner with friends. I went, “Okay, let’s go, Nadia!” And then Nadia started talking to me about breaking down bits of the storyboard, and rethinking certain parts, because of all this energy from the win. I love talking to Nadia about that stuff — I always have time for it. But I was like, “Wow. [laughs] Right now, huh? No break?”
Yeah, the next step will be planning funding for performance reference — dance, in particular. And then animatic development.
Nadia: Prepping for the next pitch, in one month’s time.
Shofela: Yeah, that really is the next step. Durban.
As we saved the recording, said goodbye and took the stairs down from the fourth floor, we could feel the promise of this thing.
There’s something different about Crocodile Dance. Some projects bump around the film market ecosystem for years without cohering. But the draw of this one was clear right from its Annecy pitch. You got it in things like its dance choreography, shown during the presentation in animatic form — the storyboard cut together into a film.
Later this month, Shofela and Nadia will pitch again in South Africa at the Durban FilmMart. The momentum behind their project is real right now — we hope it finds the partners it needs to find. We’ll be watching it from here.
Until next time!
The first quote comes from its Annecy page. The second is from the pitch.
So, their pitch was 10 minutes long and they cut their story boards into a film. Smart.Advertising the film while continuing to make it is very smart. Stories like this keep me motivated as I continue to make my own films. That's what's up. Wishing them all the best.