Formal education curriculum links

This material is designed to address the needs of a Key Stage 2 audience. It aims to help children, teachers and cinema staff access the film, enhance the viewing experience and develop ideas for discussion and activities around themes and content.

Introducing the film

Introduce the screening with a brief synopsis of the film from the Introduction and synopsis. Ask the audience:

• Does it remind you of any stories you've heard before?(It is based on a West African folktale.)
• What are the typical characteristics of folktales (See: Kirikou and the Sorceress as a folktale)?
• It is an animation. Have you seen any other animated films set in Africa? The Prince of Egypt, Tarzan, The Lion King. Point out that these were made in the United States. This one was made mainly in France, the voices are all African actors and the music was written by an African composer.
• What do you think it will look like? Consider settings, characters, style etc.

See: Suggestions for questions

After the film

Literacy

You could link an investigation to the structure and tradition of Kirikou and the Sorceress as a folktale to a study of traditional stories such as myths, legends, fairytales, fables and parables from different cultures. Think about how witches and sorceresses are usually portrayed in these stories is this one unusual in that Karaba is redeemed at the end?

Children could:

• Write a story plan for their own folktale, myth or other traditional tale, using the story themes from Kirikou and the Sorceress, but substituting different characters and/or changing the setting.
• Write alternative endings to Kirikou and the Sorceress using the same characters and settings, but including some of the language particular to the characters in the film. Read them out to the class, as a 'griot', with percussion instruments as musical accompaniment.
• Write new or extended verses for to perform in front of the class based on the song which the villagers make up about Kirikou.
• Rewrite one of the six sections of the Story outline in a different forms for different audiences, whether as prose, a diary (from Kirikou's or the children's point of view?) or as a newspaper article.
• Present the story or part of it as a sequence of scenes on a storyboard.
• Write a simplified version of the story in a familiar, modern setting.
• Write character studies and accounts from various viewpoints.

Curriculum links: the wider curriculum

Activities and discussion points for Geography, PSHE, Art & Design and Music.

Geography

People and places

Kirikou lives in West Africa. Use an atlas or globe to find what makes up the regions of the African continent. Compare the traditional image of village life clothing, activities, food with the lives of West Africans today. What is different and why? Youssou N'dour, the composer for the film who comes from Senegal, said of the way the film looked, 'They are idyllic images, of course, not the Africa of today, but a stylised and mythical Africa, an Africa of children's tales.'

Landscape

• Compare the flat landscape and sparse vegetation of the savannah with the mountains and the lush forests. Is this a realistic combination of settings, or has it been created for the film to add to Kirikou's adventure?
• Find out about the baobab, a tree with an enormous trunk, and its mythical past in which it was dropped on earth by the gods.
• Draw a map of all the locations which Kirikou covers on his adventure.

Wildlife

The animals in the film can all be found in Africa. Find out about the habitat and habits of hoopoes, zorils, ground squirrels, wart hogs and snakes.

PSHE

Discussion topics

• Kirikou's situation and his options: What would you have done in his place? How does being so small and young help or hinder him?
• How does Karaba keep the villagers under her thumb? How do the villagers respond to this? (Some accept it, some create their own rules to keep themselves safe, such as warning Kirikou that he must not upset Karaba). Why do the villagers refuse to accept Karaba when Kirikou says that she is no longer evil? What changes their minds?
• What are the consequences of the attack on Karaba a long time ago? What are the consequences of her wrong-doing?
• In the village, who feels responsible for the group and who thinks only about themselves? Think about the superstitious old man, the old woman who tries to hide her jewellery, Kirikou's mother and uncle, and Kirikou himself.
• People living in different times and places with other beliefs and customs: Why are villagers like they are? Consider where they live and their experience of the world. How might this affect their understanding of how the world works?

Art and Design

• Explore and develop the possibilities of simple figures on coloured backgrounds, to create expressive portraits.
• Investigate the inspiration behind the different styles used by Michel Ocelot, the director of Kirikou and the Sorceress, particularly the traditional African art on which the designs of the fetishes were based. He says, 'Africa has a great tradition of decorative art but not so much that of a figurative graphic art. For inspiration purposes, I imagined an African Henri Rousseau. That idea helped us design the decor of the background scenery. As for the characters, we made use of Egyptian art as I wanted to avoid caricature and I also wanted the handsome individuals to immediately appear striking.'
• Draw the settings and characters, perhaps using the same inspiration.
• Working in groups, create an animated film using drawn or collage figures using the same visual inspirations as Michel Ocelot. Use a TV as a monitor, tripod and a camcorder with a stop-frame/frame record facility, or link with a local animation workshop. A 'storyline' could be the journey of a character through a range of different settings where he meets different characters until achieving his goal. (NB Kirikou and the Sorceress was made using an digital animation package called 'Tic Tac Toon'. This package allows the animator to scan in drawings or animate directly on a graphics tablet, which means that the film looks like traditional animation although it has used up-to-date computer technology.)

Music

Traditional African musical instruments can be heard in the film. The composer Youssou N'dour said that he wanted to work on this film for two main reasons, 'Firstly, because it is an African tale that I can identify with. It talks of water and nature, children, a sorceress and fetishes, things that make up our mythology, our roots. Secondly, because it would enable me to work once more with traditional music. The director made it very clear that he wanted no modern or percussion instruments, and that he wanted to find a more natural inspiration, seeking inspiration where music originated. We have therefore used traditional African instruments like the balafon, the ritti, the cora, the xalam, the tokho, the sabaar and the belon.'

• Find out about these instruments. Do you have similar instruments in your school?
• Think about the way in which the instruments in the film are use to emphasise character a heavy beat for the stumbling warthog, a quick light trilling sound as Kirikou runs about at high speed.
• Create a piece of music to put alongside the readings of the written work the class produce; it could be a melody or a simple rhythm.
• Compose some music to go with the villagers' song for Kirikou.