Mango Groove’s ‘’Special Star’’ Featured in New Hit Animated Release ‘’Jungle Beat: The Movie’’
Mango Groove are delighted and proud to announce that the original version of their song ‘’Special Star’’ is a featured track on the newly released full length animated movie ‘’Jungle Beat: The Movie’’. In addition, Mango Groove’s lead singer Claire Johnston has a small, featured voice-over role as a Wildebeest!
The release of the full-length ‘’Jungle Beat’’ animated movie comes on the back of the hugely successful series of animated shorts, loved by millions of people globally.
A Sandcastle Studios production made in collaboration with Sunrise Productions, Jungle Beat: The Movie recently premiered as part of the official feature selection of the digital edition of the Annecy International Animation Festival and is now available worldwide and can be found on on Apple TV, Truth TV, DSTV Box Office and Vimeo in South Africa.
Jungle Beat: The Movie is a family friendly adventure of epic proportions. When a homesick alien crash- lands his spaceship near the colourful African jungle, his new animal friends need to find a way to get him back to his ship and teach him about friendship and fun before his Space-Conquerer father can take over the planet. The film is based on the global hit series, Jungle Beat, which has broadcast in over 200 countries and across a range of media platforms including TV, cinema and in-flight entertainment.
In the words of Mango Groove’s Claire: ‘’We were hugely touched and honored when we were approached to be part of the soundtrack of the movie, and the ‘’fit’’ was so perfect for us on every possible level: In addition to ‘’Jungle Beat’’ being such a visual feast and being so universally appealing, the movie carries such a wonderful message of planetary solidarity, and the power of love and tolerance to bridge differences and unify us all.
We were astonished, in fact, by just how prophetic and resonant the story and script were for the particularly challenging times we find ourselves in today. Now more than ever, as all inhabitants of this planet face up against the shared threats of a pandemic, climate change and social upheaval, this wonderful and inspiring movie comes as both a clarion call and a tonic.
It represents a true celebration of our commonalities and the importance of us rising above our differences, as a species and as a planet. ‘’Jungle Beat’s’’ script is so witty, so charming and so positive, and yet it is simultaneously deeply moving and full of pathos.’’
Claire continues: ‘’An additional, stunning element of the movie for us was of course its celebration of the visual splendor of the African continent, and on a creative level, its deep African roots. Aesthetically, the movie is a wonder to behold in its portrayal of this beautiful continent of ours, and all the more moving for us that the production is home-grown and produced on this continent.’’
Writer and Director of Jungle Beat: The Movie, Brent Dawes says: ‘’I first heard the song Special Star when I was 15 or 16. It had me, a teenage boy, playing it on repeat and jumping and dancing around the house. It infected me with joy. That feeling has stayed with me all these years later and, when I started writing Jungle Beat the Movie I knew I
wanted to try and infuse it with same positive infectiousness. I wrote the opening of the movie to flow with the beginning of the song and you can imagine how thrilled I was when Mango Groove agreed to allowing the song to be part of the movie. It’s a timeless song that is still delivering 30 years after it first came out, and that’s my hope for the movie.”