DOHA — A
cartoon series on an alien who crash-lands in
World Cup host Qatar aims to ease
a culture clash between more than a million foreign football fans and the
conservative state’s residents.
اضافة اعلان
Like the arriving fans, Kawkabani, star of the series launched by
Qatar’s first animation studio, has to learn Arabic pronunciation, how to drink
coffee — and to discover that Qataris prepare way too much food for their
guests.
Creators Hossein Heydar and Amal Al-Shammari hope the series will
help Qataris to be more understanding of the 1.4 million football fanatics
expected to besiege them in November and December.
Conservative Qataris prefer sipping on specialty coffee and fruit
juices while European football fans are known for their beer-fuelled good times
in the street.
Kawkabani seeks “to explain to Qataris that there must be
acceptance of these cultures ... and help them (visitors) coexist or understand
the Qatari culture as well,” said Shammari, who wrote the scripts.
The first two 10-minute episodes of “Kawkabani” — which means “The
Planet Person” in Arabic — have already been launched on YouTube by their
company, Nefaish Animation.
“As an animation studio, we looked at content in the region, even
in Qatar, and we felt there was a lack of content that represents
Qatari culture,” said Shammari, Nefaish’s creative director.
Arabic words were sometimes garbled and costumes not always quite
right.
“We felt like we need a studio in Qatar that pays attention to all
these details and represents Qatari culture in the right way,” he said.
Tiny Qatar’s triumph in securing the right to host the World Cup
gives it the opportunity to show off its customs and idiosyncrasies.
“When the Alien falls into Doha, again he is an alien so he
doesn’t know anything so we are not expecting him to understand the Qatar
society and in the Qatar society we have,” said Shammari, who wrote the script.
“We want to explain a lot of things and share our culture with the
visitors.”
Nefaish only hired artists from the
Middle East with knowledge of
Arabic culture, added Heydar, in charge of animation.
Besides
Kawkabani, the series has three main Qatari characters representing what the
creators consider to be the main strands of the 270,000-strong indigenous
community, which lives alongside more than 2.5 million foreign workers.
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