‘Zafari’ Makes MENA Debut on Spacetoon

First CG-animated series to be produced using the Unreal game engine celebrates our differences.

DUBAI — Spacetoon TV, the first kids’ TV channel in MENA, has recently premiered Zafari, an 11-minute CG animated series. The CG-animated series created with the Unreal Engine real-time game engine airs on Sundays and Tuesdays on Spacetoon TV.

Zafari reinforces the values of friendship and accepting others in a humorous manner through creative storytelling and unique characters, including a baby elephant with zebra skin, a lion with flamingo feathers and many more that were magically born in the skin of other animals.

Created and executive produced by David Dozoretz, Zafari is the first episodic animated series to be fully rendered in real-time game engine Unreal Engine. The high creativity in combining shapes and skins of different animals creates beautiful and unique characters and the end result is a very high quality and one-of-a-kind TV show.

Choosing to render the entire series within a game engine proved to be a huge success and the highly innovative and creative team behind the show boast an incredible track record for their involvement in blockbuster movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Mission: Impossible, X-Men, and many more.

The show also received recognition as Best Animated Work of the Year by BroadcastProMe 2018 Awards, and as Best Use of Game Engine in TV Series by Infinity Film Festival – Beverley Hills, 2018.

“We believe that this year is the perfect year to broadcast ZAFARI as we sensed a strong bond between the moral of the series and the theme of the year of tolerance in UAE. We’ve chosen to join the forces which promotes the nation’s vision of prosperity and stability in the region,” said Spacetoon Group president Fayez Al Sabbagh. “In Spacetoon, we take our responsibility in teaching children to transcend tolerance into a higher level which is the embracement of the unique difference in society, and there is no doubt that the cartoon is one of the powerful tools to deliver this message directly to children and plant the seeds of tolerance in their minds.”

Spacetoon is planning to support activities for Zafari ranging from live shows and toy production to huge marketing campaigns and cinema events.

The strong core message of Zafari has also received support from FUNN Organization in Sharjah, one of Spacetoon’s partners, which premiered Zafari for the first time in the Middle East during The Sharjah International Children’s Film Festival 2018.

The Ink Group and ALC — a subsidiary of GNAM, the parent company of Spacetoon — also recently formed a partnership resulting to establish the joint venture Ink ALC, which owns the licensing rights of Zafari co-production. GNAM has always considered co-production to be a part of its variety strategy to enrich the cartoon and animation industry in MENA with edutainment content that suits all children’s preferences.

Source: Spacetoon Kids TV