Team — if(fy)

Writer // Producer // Sound Director

Osiokeh Ikharo (Ōce-yō-keh Ē-khä-rōh) is a Los Angeles-based Nigerian-American filmmaker and screenwriter with an abiding love for animation. A love which motivated her to move to Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher and craft narratives while pretending to make lesson plans. Her stories are infused with heart; centered around emotionally flawed but ultimately sympathetic characters who often struggle to relate to the world around them.

In telling the story of if(fy), it was important to Osiokeh to partner with Black creatives to lend further authenticity to her characters. As a graduate from UC Berkeley in both African-American Studies and Mass Communications she believes that truly diverse storytelling can only happen if we diversify the talents that go into creating them. Everything else is blackface.

Chief Animation Supervisor // Animation Director // Co-founder of The Hidden Hand Studios (THHS)

Lesego Vorster is best known for creating and directing the “You Give Me Heart” short in the award winning Disney+ Afro-futurist animated anthology series Kizazi Moto. However, as one of the co-founders of the Johannesburg-based animation production company, The Hidden Hand Studios, Vorster has long been the face of rising artistic talent from the continent. A position he does not take lightly.

Lesego considers himself a teacher at heart, and with his creative partner Ross Lelliott they use their studio as a pipeline to access African talent and as a training ground to further develop Johannesburg as a hub of Black animation.

Lead Animator // Assistant Director // Co-founder of The Hidden Hand Studios (THHS)

Ross Lelliott, as the other founding-half of the South Africa based production company, The Hidden Hand Studios, champions art in all its forms. He has a particular affinity for 2D animation but is a well-rounded creative with talents spanning digital painting, storyboarding, layout, background & landscape painting, graphic design and illustration.

Through his work on Genndy Tartakovsky’s Emmy Award winning animated series, Primal, along with the development of the Super Scientist initiative, Ross gained a renewed appreciation for the value of African talent to the animation industry as a whole. He’s committed making sure Black creatives are further incorporated into every stage of the storytelling process, starting with the work he’s doing at THHS.