Suggestions for questions

For both a school and family audience, the following are useful categories to think about before viewing the film. This could be done in the classroom, given to an audience on programme notes at the screening, or used by someone introducing the screening to help the audience focus.

Story

Read through the first part of the Story outline.

What happens next? Why do you think that (based on knowledge of the characters)?

Setting

There are a number of different settings in the film: a traditional village, a savannah, mountains, a river and forest.

• What will you expect to see in each of these settings?
• What will the plants be like?
• What colours will be used, to express time of day, setting, temperature?

Character

Read through the descriptions of the characters before you show the film, excluding the plot points. Ask children:

• Why might the characters feel the way they do about the other characters in the story?
• What might the characters look like?

Camera

Get the children to think about how the camera helps to tell the story of the film.

• Why does the director choose different shots at different times? Long Shots the frame includes setting and people in it. Much of the film is in long shot, like a storybook.
• Mid-shots the frame includes part of a person or thing, with some of the setting in the background, eg when Kirikou hides as he holds on to his mother's skirt, and we see her only from the waist down.
• Close-ups the frame includes a detail or a small part of a person such as the face, eg when the Sorceress is at her most angry and decides to chase Kirikou herself.