Tanzania
Impressions from Dar es Salaam

In the week from 9 to 13 May 2022, a total of 12 participants successfully took part in the AFRICOMICS workshop. Most of the participating artists were illustrators, but they were complemented by two writers. What made the workshop special was the coming together of different mentalities and stories that were connected through the medium of comics. The workshop, which was held at the Alliance française in Dar es Salaam, was led by James Gayo and Hamed Eshrat.
 

The workhsop facilitators 

© James Gayo James Gayo, a well-known cartoonist in East Africa and a filmmaker, is among the early Maisha Film Lab alumni. His popular Kingo cartoon strip appears daily in Mwananchi, and The Citizen of Tanzania, The New Vision and Bukede of Uganda, The Nairobi Star of Kenya, and The Daily Mail of Zambia. Apart from screenwriting and directing , Gayo stared in the “White shadow” directed by Noaz Deshe, a film that won the Lion of the future award at the the 70th Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2013. Through his company’s training wing, Gaba Art Center, James Gayo together with his colleagues, continue to train young, aspiring Tanzania film makers.

© Hamed Eshrat Hamed Eshrat, born in 1979 in Tehran, Iran, grew up in North Rhine-Westphalia and studied communication design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee and at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. He works as a designer, freelance artist and author in Berlin. In 2009, his graphic novel debut "Tipping Point - Téhéran 1979" was published by the French publisher Edition Sarbacane. In "Tipping Point" he tells the story of his family during the Islamic Revolution in Iran and their flight. He also made his debut on the German-speaking market in 2015 with the highly acclaimed comic narrative "Venustransit". In 2018, the historical comic "Down with Hitler! or Why Karl didn't want to be a cyclist" followed, based on a scenario by historian Jochen Voit. In 2022, his long-awaited autobiographical work "Coming of H" will be published, for which he has already been chosen as one of the finalists of the Leibinger Foundation Comic Book Prize in 2021. In addition to his work as a comic book artist, Hamed Eshrat works as an illustrator for various magazines and newspapers, publishers and agencies. As a draughtsman, he often draws inspiration for his stories from other media such as theatre, film, literature, painting and music.
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