People & Places: The young animator selling Ghana to the world through folklore, historical ‘cartoons’

At a point in his young life, he had very little. Life was hard and he barely had a place to put his head and food to eat. He had to negotiate with his school; NAFTI, to stay on campus, though he had graduated.

But his dream of telling Ghanaian stories through animation never died. The motivation for Francis Y. Brown, which basically started his dream was a rather strange one.

His challenges made him think about life and through that, he decided to create his first animation work, “The Beggar”.

“Some of my friends call me a magician, I basically graduated with just 2 cedis in my pocket. I was there and I wasn’t having anything to eat. I wasn’t having money, all I had was gari and a friend of mine was having sugar and so we added both. But as we were making this mix, we started pondering upon life and we were like if we should die now, we will have family members coming to cry and spend money so I was like this is a beautiful idea for a concept for an animation film, so I’ll work on it,” these were his words as he shared his story in this edition of People and Places.

So he took the bold step, inspired by Ghanaian history, folklore and culture, he decided to focus on telling Ghanaian stories and through this, has put Ghana on the global map.

Today, he is recognized on many international fronts and his work appreciated.

Watch Animax FYB CEO, Francis Y. Brown, tell his story in this edition of People and Places on GhanaWeb TV: