Pakistan's first hand-drawn animation is in the hands of young genius

 Usman Riaz is incredibly creative and very talented. He’s a writer, a musician, a composer, an artist and just generally a very interesting person with a constant desire to learn and create.

 At the young age of 25, Usman Riaz, has taken on quite a challenge. He decided to make Pakistan’s first hand-drawn animation. It’s not an easy feat to accomplish. After all, Pakistan literally doesn’t have a hand drawn animation industry. So to Pakistan’s first hand drawn animation you would sort of have to create the industry first. Or at least get the right people together to create the first hand drawn anime studio. Sounds pretty difficult, right? And then there’s also all the financing issues.

 But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The first thing you actually need to create any sort of film, cartoon or animation – is an idea. And Usman is loaded with ideas! He’s written a story called The Glassworker and he’s ready to direct it. What’s the story about? Well, let me quote the short description:
“’The Glassworker’ is a coming-of-age story about a young boy named Vincent, who is learning the art of Glassblowing from his father in their Glass Shop. As he grows older he begins to fall in love with a frequent visitor of the shop – a young girl named Alliz.”

 The film will follow both Vincent and Alliz through their developing years as life gets more complicated and inhibits their relationship.


You’d also need a whole team of talented people to draw, design, animate, compose the music, and produce the movie. Amazingly enough – there’s already a team of those people, all originating from Pakistan, but spread out all the way across United Kingdom, Malaysia, South Africa and the United States. This awesome group of people formed the new and amazing Mano Animation Studios.
“Pakistan has no hand drawn animation industry. But with this film and our studio, we hope to lay the foundation for artists to come and work on beautiful works of art that they can be proud of. Mano Animation Studios means that we can support new work, and seed opportunities to support a new generation of exceptional artists in Pakistan, and beyond.”


The question of funding is always the most complicated one. Where does one get the money to make an idea into a film? Well, that’s where Kickstarter comes in. Fortunately we live in a time where if you have a good idea, there’s ways to fund it. The initial goal for this movie was to raise $50 000. That was supposed to be enough to make the first 15 minutes of the film. The good news is that that goal has been reached. In fact, by now, $75 000 have been raised and there’s still time until the end of the campaign. So Usman Riaz and the talented team behind this project are now hoping to raise enough to create a full length film instead of just the first 15 minutes. And you can help! Go over to the kickstarter campaign and donate some more!