Born in Morocco, Ali Essafi pursued a documentary filmmaking career after studying psychology in France. His works as a director include “General, Here We Are”, “The Silence of the Beet Fields”, “Ouarzazate Movie” and “Shikhat’s Blues” which have been widely screened in international film circuits. After returning to Morocco, he embarked on a lengthy research …
Mostafa Derkaoui was born in 1944 in Oujda (Morocco). A philosophy student in Casablanca in the early 1960s, passionate about theatre, he was banned for political reasons from one of his first plays in the midst of a period of repression against the far left and the opposition under Hassan II. He then left for …
Atteyat Al-Abnoudy (1939-2018) was born Atteyat Awad Mahmoud Khalil into a family of labourers in a small village along the Nile Delta. A child of Nasserism, she studied law at the University of Cairo while supporting herself financially by working as an actress and assistant director at the theatre. At the beginning of the 1970s, …
Jean-Marie Teno is a director, editor and producer of Cameroonian cinema, born on May 14, 1954. In 1983, he made his first documentary short entitled Schubbah. In 1996, he shot Clando, a feature film that won the Audience Award at the 6th African Film Festival in Milan, Italy. He has since directed Chef (1999), Le …
Born in 1946 in Sidi Bel Abbès, Brahim Tsaki studied at the drama school in Algiers before continuing his studies in directing in Belgium. In 1980 he signed his first short film, La Boîte dans le désert, one of the future three episodes of Les Enfants du vent, which he directed in 1981, followed by …
António Ole was born in Luanda, Angola in 1951. He studied Afro-American culture and cinema at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). Painter, photographer, sculptor and filmmaker, he has been recognized since 1984 beyond Angolan borders since his firstexhibition at the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles. From 1975, he directed many films, …
Born in 1936 in Mauritania, Med Hondo is known in the world of dubbing and to the general public as the French voice of African-American actors such as Eddie Murphy, Morgan Freeman or Richard Pryor. Arrived in France at the end of the 1950s, he exercised many professions (docker, cook) before embarking on the cinema …
Sam Soko is a director and producer based in Nairobi. His work on sociopolitical projects in music and film has allowed him to connect and work with artists around the world. He is co-founder of LBx Africa, a Kenyan production company that produced the 2018 Academy Award–nominated short fiction film Watu Wote. Softie is his …
After studying theater and participating in the creation of the first black troupe in Paris, “the Griots”, Sarah Maldoror, of Guadeloupe origin, left to study cinema in Moscow. Her first productions took her to Africa, where she shot anti-colonialist films, very representative of committed cinema in the 1970s. She obtained in 1969, with Monagambée, shot …
After graduating in filmmaking and shooting from the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies (IDHEC), until the 1990s he worked both in documentary photography and shooting for fiction and documentary films. At the same time, he made his first films. He directed films including And the Life (1991), Life Is Immense and Full of Dangers (1994), …
Born in 1969, Christophe Bisson lives and works in Caen. After studying philosophy at university, he devoted himself to the plastic arts and put on many exhibitions in France and worldwide.In 2007, with Maryann De Leohe, he made the documentary, White Horse, which caught the eye of international festivals. Nominated for a Golden Bear at …
Born in 1974 in Portugal, Sandro Aguilar studied film at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema. In 1998 he founded the production company O Som e a Fúria. His films have won awards at festivals, such as La Biennale di Venezia, Gijón, Oberhausen and Vila do Conde, and have been shown in Torino, Belfort, …