Zarafa

Under a baobab tree, an old man tells a group of children about Maki, a ten-year-old boy who escapes from slave traders in the African desert and befriends an orphaned baby giraffe named Zarafa. The Pasha of Egypt intends the giraffe as a gift to King Charles X of France. Hassan, a desert prince, is tasked with bringing the animal to the king, while Maki follows with the aim of taking her back home. Their journey leads from Sudan through Alexandria, Marseille and the snowy Alps toward Paris.

The film is a hand-drawn animated feature directed by Rémi Bezançon and Jean-Christophe Lie, from a screenplay by Bezançon and Alexander Abela, and is loosely inspired by the story of the first giraffe to reach France. It followed Bezançon's live-action features The First Day of the Rest of Your Life and A Happy Event, and was his third film. The voice cast includes Max Renaudin, Simon Abkarian, Vernon Dobtcheff, Roger Dumas, Ronit Elkabetz and Mohamed Fellag. Produced in Belgium and France, it had a budget of about 9 million USD and took roughly 12 million USD worldwide.

Audience responses were steady across platforms, with a rating of 6.9 out of 10 on IMDb from around 2,000 votes and the same score on TMDB from 133 votes. A film critics' rating of 6.6 out of 10 from 21 reviews places critical and audience assessments close together. At 78 minutes, the film is a compact family adventure.