The story of freed Ethiopian slave Bilal Ibn Rabah, is set to hit the big screen later this year in animated form.
The 3D movie, the first by Dubai’s animation and special effects studio Barajoun Entertainment, will star British-Nigerian actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Game of Thrones, Lost) as the voice of the lead character. Several prominent animators, who have worked on blockbuster films such as Shrek and Lord of the Rings, have also been working on the film which has been in development for 8 years and is currently in postproduction.
“We’ve pulled around 80 different animation and CGI talents from around the world to work with us on this,” screenwriter, founder and managing partner of Barajoun Entertainment said.
“We’re talking with people who worked on 300, Shrek, Lord of the Rings, that sort of calibre. It’s a really strong team and many of them are in Dubai for first time to make this movie,”
The film depicts Bilal’s fight for freedom after he and his sister were kidnapped from their home land in Ethiopia and forced to live as slaves. Bilal managed to secure his freedom while also keeping his sister out of harm’s way. The story has inspired people across the world including Akinnuoye-Abgaje.
“The movie tells the story of a real superhero, an African slave who was brought to Arabia 1,000 years ago and fought for his freedom,” the actor told Indiewire. “He became an inspiration to generations and we’re retelling his story 1,000 years later.”
Bilal is probably best known as being Islam’s first Muezzin (caller to prayer) as well as one of Prophet Mohammed’s closet companions. He died in 646 AD at the age of 57.
“We’ve paid serious attention to detail. We hired 11 researchers, including doctors from universities, to research the history of the story, and we’ve taken all the characters’ descriptions from at least 17 different historical sources,” Jamal said of the research process. “We hired two forensic scientists to model the characters based on these descriptions and what we know about the tribes of the time. It took six months to design each character and we’re really proud of it. We’re showing the characters exactly as described in historical texts, not just using our imagination. We’ve spent 5,000 hours of research to develop clothes and props too.”
Bilal, will be released towards the end of this year.
