David Neumann’s Newmation Signs Malenga Mulendema, Creator Of Netflix’s First African Animated Series ‘Supa Team 4’

EXCLUSIVE: David Neumann’s management company Newmation, for animation creators in film and TV, on Thursday announced its signing of Malenga Mulendema, the creator of Supa Team 4 — Netflix’s first-ever original animated series out of Africa, which debuts on the platform on July 20th.

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Formerly titled Mama K’s Team 4, the show follows four teenage girls living in futuristic Lusaka, Zambia, as they’re recruited to save the world by a retired secret agent. Providing animation for it is Superprod, the French company behind the Oscar-nominated Song of the Sea. Producing Supa Team 4 were South Africa’s Triggerfish Studio, which most recently debuted the Afrofuturist animated anthology series Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire on Disney+, and London-based kids producer Cake (Angry Birds: Summer Madness).

A Native of Zambia, Mulendema came to make the series after being named as one of eight winners of the Triggerfish Story Lab, a pan-African talent search backed by the Cape Town-based animation studio and The Walt Disney Company, in 2015.

“I am thrilled to welcome Malenga to Newmation,” said the company’s CEO Neumann in a statement to Deadline. “She is a visionary and impressive creator and having seen her, for her first time, write, develop and create an inventive and SUPA FUN series with fresh African allure and enchantment, I think she is quite remarkable!

Continued Neumann, “We represent filmmakers and creators from all corners of the world but are focused on talent from untapped regions like Africa and hyper focused on producing new films and series from Africa for a global audience. Africa is a continent with a massive population, advancing technology, rising economies, but very little representation. It is not a place only for natural resources or precious stones, but high caliber talent, rich history and broad appealing mythology, and we are dedicated to mining those stories and bringing them to life on the big and small screen.”

Mulendema comes to Newmation following the company’s signing of Ziki Nelson, who created Disney+’s forthcoming Iwájú’, the platform’s first African animated comic book series. The plan going forward is for the company to partner with Nelson’s banner Kugali to produce additional films and series set in Africa.

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