Khumba

Khumba is a 2013 South African animated comedy film that blends fictional animals with real-world settings. Directed by Anthony Silverston, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Raffaella Delle Donne, it was the second feature from Triggerfish Animation Studios. In the United States, Millennium Entertainment handled distribution, while Cinema Management Group licensed international rights. The voice cast includes Jake T. Austin, Steve Buscemi, Loretta Devine, Laurence Fishburne, Richard E. Grant, AnnaSophia Robb, Anika Noni Rose, Catherine Tate, Charles Adler, and Liam Neeson.

The story centers on Khumba, a zebra born with only half his stripes—resembling a quagga—whose herd blames him for a prolonged drought. Ostracized except by his tomboyish friend Tombi, he sets out to find his missing stripes. Along the way, he meets an African wild dog named Skalk, a maternal wildebeest called Mama V, and an ostrich named Bradley. After learning from a leucistic Black Eagle that the magic watering hole lies in the cave of a half-blind leopard named Phango, Khumba confronts the predator. Phango hunts him because of an ancient leopard myth promising power to the cat that eats a half-striped zebra. In the cave, Khumba realizes that diversity is a strength, and after a fight that collapses the cave, Phango is killed by falling rocks. Khumba falls into the water, appears dead, then revives as rain begins to fall. The herd finds a new home, and all the animals he met gather together.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2013, and was released in South Africa on October 25, 2013, by Indigenous Film Distribution. It received mixed reviews and was a box office disappointment, earning $28.4 million worldwide against a $20 million budget. The film is dedicated to Reinhold Rau, founder of the Quagga Breeding Project, who died on February 11, 2006; Rau worked to selectively breed plains zebras to recreate the extinct quagga.