The First Emirati-German Animation, On Its Way to the Tokyo Animation Festivals

The cinematic movie “Zigo” is the first animation made by joint artists from the United Arab Emirates and Germany. It will be shown on live screens in nine different countries, including Canada and Japan, after completion.

Salar Poorimani, an entrepreneur and inventor, is the director of this project who has also taken on the role of writer for the animation’s story.

Zigo (our protagonist) is a roach, and the story revolves around the modern world of roaches. By overcoming many obstacles and facing bizarre occurrences, the main character is trying to make the world a better place to live in-a world that is being ravaged by human beings.

A short Q&A session with Salar Poorimani:

Interviewer: I have seen your resume, and it is impressing to see that you are active in many fields: designing and selling jewelry, interior design, potato chip production, and also writing as a dedicated occupation. May I ask, which one of them produces more financial interest for you personally?

Salar: Yes, you see, with proper team building and the careful management of daily responsibilities, it can be quite easy to start up various projects and extract results from them.

Interviewer: Was financial gain the only reason for the creation of this movie?

Salar: No, not entirely. Our main goal was for the children aged eight to sixteen years to have an improved view over the world and be more inquisitive and thoughtful of their surrounding environment. And well, just like many other animations, this movie too will have substantial gains for all of us. We might even be able to hint at a business brand or a product in our movie. Although the main profit of this movie will not come from its sales on the big screens, most of the profit will flow from selling Zigo-themed toys, accessories, storybooks, coloring books, and so on. These sales will provide us with more than a twelve-million-dollar return on investment in less than a year, as opposed to the only two million dollars spent on making the movie itself.

Interviewer: Why are there fewer new animated movies being made compared to new classic movies?

Salar: The animated movie industry is a bit unknown to cinema fans as of yet, and it has just begun to take its place in the minds of our customers. The market share of this industry is growing by the day, and at the moment, we have nineteen fulltime and four part-time employees who are working on this project of ours.

Interviewer: Will there be a reference to Dubai in Zigo or perhaps a chance to see a few of the city’s beautiful sceneries?

Salar: Yes, of course! For instance, in one of the scenes, we can see a student class (filled with roach students!) that has several pictures of Dubai hanging on the wall, which showcases that Earth can have astonishing cities too. In the next scene, we show the audience a few broken and ugly cities, telling them that those pictures, are the Earth that humans have caused.

Interviewer: What is the current state of your project? What part of it are you currently working on?

Salar: We spent the entire previous year focusing on character design and scene decoupage, and today we are focused on creating the main locations and camera placement in order to make preparations for rendering. This process will continue for three-four months, and after that, comes the time where Zigo is finally shown in the movies. Also, our movie will be played in a number of Tokyo Animation Festivals before the official public release.

Interviewer: Which countries are in the lead in terms of animation production?

Salar: The U.S. and Japan are two well-known countries for the design and production of animated creations, and the Emirates-which I think is a piece of paradise on this Earth-can have amazing potential for animation. These movies, aside from their financial profit, can impact the lifestyle of Emiratis and their attitude towards this kind of art.

Interviewer: How long is Zigo? And is it an animation movie or an animated series?

Salar: The story of Zigo, consists of a number of sequels which we intent on making after the first one’s release. The first chapter will be seventy-five minutes, and I tell you, it will be a best seller! The teaser trailer of our animation has garnered the attention of more than two hundred thousand viewers in a few days on YouTube, which speaks for the charming nature of our movie.