Comfort Arthur shares more details inside the making of her animated Malaria film, “The Underestimated Villain”

British-born Ghanaian animator, graphic designer, visual artist and editor, Comfort Arthur, has shared her inspiration behind her new body of work, “The Underestimated Villain” an animated film seeking to provide information on Malaria.

In an interview with Ameyaw Debrah, Comfort revealed that when she was contacted by Comic Relief to work on a short-film about Malaria, her goal was to do something different from all the other malaria projects we have seen.

“I’m sure you’ve seen all of these educational films about malaria. They’re very educational but they’re not very entertaining and impactful. As I’ve done with Black Barbie with poetry, I worked with Poetra Asantewaa who came up with a poem. We decided that there’s no point of us saying the educational stuff, so why don’t we use reverse psychology to get people to think. So we created the villain, the anopheles mosquito and made her a diva, to be celebrated, but she’s actually mocking the audience,” she told Ameyaw Debrah.

Speaking about some of the challenges she encountered while working on the short-film, Comfort stated;

“When it comes to these sensitive topics, you want it to be entertaining. We also didn’t want it to be over entertaining and miss the point. We also wanted it to be a specific time so people don’t get bored and lose concentration.

“The Underestimated Villain,” which has now been put in five different Ghanaian dialects, according to Comfort, has become very accessible to a lot of Ghanaians who hitherto, would not have gotten the message had it been in only English.

Comfort Arthur was born in the UK but my parents are Ghanaian. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design and a Masters in Animation. She is best known for the animation works such as Black Barbie, The Cursed Ones and Children of the Mountain. She is the founder of “The Comfy Studio” which is a multimedia studio based in Ghana.

Comfort directed “The Underestimated Villain,” a short film which offers some answers told from the perspective of a famous serial killer named Anopheles.

‘The Underestimated Villain’ is part of a trio of films commissioned by UK charity, Comic Relief and global healthcare company, GSK through their Fighting Malaria…On Screen initiative.

Watch full interview below;