AYA OF YOP CITY originally sprung from a desire to portray a country, convey happy memories and point out that all too often, newspapers tell us about how African are dying but never about how they live. On the other hand, animation films and youth literature focus on tales and legends, portraying a folkloric vision not in keeping with modern African life.

So here is a different Africa from the one we generally get to see. In the heart of an Abidjan neighborhood, the daily life of 19-year-old Aya, a young middle class woman who strives to do well at school, and her girlfriends Adjoua and Bintou, who would rather major in husband hunting. Here, events take place on a family scale rather than a national one, and are infused with the gentle way of life and heedlessness of the 1970s.
This will be an urban, modern animation film, a vast ensemble comedy that will not only take an interest in the passing fancies of Yop City’s teenage girls, but also in the concerns faced by their elders. Thanks to 2D animation, we will breathe life into our characters and bestow upon them the fluidity they deserve. The nonchalance of the young ladies, who walk as slow as they talk fast; the moms whose peanut sauce burns because they’re mesmerized by soap operas; the glimmer of sunshine beating down on the asphalt; the roar of Moussa’s orange Toyota Corolla. Such is the gentle ambiance we will find in AYA OF YOP CITY. And if it gets too hot, we’ll sit ourselves down in an allocodrome and share a “turkey’s ass” or down a glass of Tip-Top with Bintou. We’ll enjoy the sounds of François Lougah, Ernesto Djédjé and rumbas from Zaire. And if people get worked up and situations spin out of control, we can always count on moms to restore order.

Of course, this perspective will not prevent us from broaching more sensitive topics, like the lack of contraception or access to education for young girls, but we’ll always keep a sense of humor, because Ivory Coast folks know how to laugh about anything, especially things that aren’t funny, with a feigned cruelty that conceals genuine tenderness. And let’s not forget the lively Ivory Coast slang called Nouchi, which transforms the most trivial conversations into verbal jousts of sometimes uncontrollable proportions.

AYA OF YOP CITY stands as a work of fiction that tells the story of the universality of human relations, simply, without moralizing or condescending, enabling us to break away from the Western world taboo that calls for any talk about Africa to be didactic or pedagogic. When contemporary Africa is portrayed lightheartedly, it moves audiences of all ages.