This diversity of voices, that could have been chaotic, challenges the pervasive idea of a globalizing “African accent” and reinforces the realistic aspirations of the authors. Not all the voice actors are Ivoirians, Aissa Maiga is Senegalese and Jacky Ido who voices Ignace (Aya’s father) is from Burkina Faso. The characters talk like people talk in Abidjan, and the casting of voices should be noted. Both appear in the dialogues where we can see the result of the contact of the French language with the African imaginary. Here the genre is realism: Marguerite Abouet’s offers an intimate close-up of the place she grew up in.Īutobiography calls for specificity and invites a desire for authenticity. Indeed, habitual depictions of Africa, whether in animation or not, are either in the genre of safari-adventure or the exploration of the myth of Africa (see “ Kirikoo and the Sorceress,” for example). We could regret that what happens around is not that eventful, but this depiction of the quotidian life of this neighborhood, the focus on the unremarkable and even the “déjà-vu” is what makes the film remarkable. Aya is mainly, like us, a spectator of what happens around her. The two aren’t academically ambitious like Aya they have a penchant for night-clubbing and flirting with boys. Instead, the authors focus on the characters that surround her, especially her two turbulent best friends Bintou and Adjoua. It is probably because Aya, as a serious young woman who wants to study medicine, isn’t the type of character to engage in adventurous or eventful plots. The title suggests that Aya is the main character, but it is surprising as little space is made for her. The movie is a succession of episodes or vignettes, and the central storyline (an affair of pregnancy and the search for the father) is that of a soap-opera, though with a comedic twist. The importance of TV appears in this first scene and continues to influence the formal choices of the film. Following the introduction of each character by Aya’s voice-over, the film chronicles the lives of the inhabitants of the lively neighborhood of Yopougon, through the eyes of Aya (voiced by Aissa Maiga). The animated film opens with a live commercial for a popular brand of beer in Abidjan, followed by a reverse shot showing people gathered around and staring at the TV, a familiar ritual in West African middle-class life.

Like the graphic novels, the film tells the story of Aya, a 19-year-old woman who lives in Abidjan, in the neighborhood of Yopougon in the Ivory Coast of the 1970’s. Aya of Yop City” is Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s first feature film and an adaptation of the couple’s best-selling, graphic novel series of the same name.

Aya of Yop City by Marguerite Abouet