Six emerg­ing African film­mak­ers you should know about

Since gain­ing inde­pen­dence from oppres­sive colo­nial rule, African nations have been pro­duc­ing diverse and pio­neer­ing inde­pen­dent films, best exem­pli­fied by the likes of Ous­mane Sem­bène, Med Hon­do, Sarah Mal­doror and Souley­mane Cis­sé. Now a new gen­er­a­tion of African film­mak­ers are draw­ing on that rich cul­tur­al her­itage while strik­ing out on their own, telling con­tem­po­rary sto­ries through new tech­niques and aes­thet­ics. Here are six up-and-com­ing direc­tors from across the con­ti­nent you should know about.

Zam­bian film­mak­er Rungano Nyoni grew up in Wales with dreams of act­ing, only to soon be drawn behind the cam­era. She debuted her remark­able first fea­ture at the Cannes Film Festival’s Direc­tors’ Fort­night to wide­spread acclaim. I Am Not a Witch, about a nine-year-old girl accused of witch­craft by her fel­low vil­lagers, blends dark humour, social cri­tique and empa­thet­ic sto­ry­telling. The film’s young pro­tag­o­nist is soon parad­ed by her keep­er around local courts and TV sta­tions, but her rebel­lious spir­it remains indomitable.

Although Nyoni drew from her vis­it to one of Ghana’s real ​“witch camps”, she also invent­ed mag­i­cal real­ist ele­ments that com­ple­ment the film’s strik­ing visu­als and com­mu­ni­cate her con­cerns about the oppres­sion of women. Not yet 40, Nyoni is a seri­ous tal­ent with clear skills in direct­ing non-pro­fes­sion­al and mul­ti-lin­gual actors of all ages.

Pre­vi­ous­ly known for her per­for­mance in Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum, Masti Diop has rapid­ly estab­lished her­self as an enig­mat­ic and engag­ing voice across five short films and sev­er­al music videos. The niece of leg­endary Sene­galese poet and film­mak­er Djib­ril Diop Mam­bé­ty and daugh­ter of jazz musi­cian Wasis Diop, a healthy mix of artis­tic dis­ci­plines is evi­dent in her inti­mate and impres­sion­is­tic cin­e­mat­ic language.

Shot on grainy mini-DVC, Diop’s Atlan­tiques was inspired by the real expe­ri­ences of young African men who made or con­tem­plat­ed a per­ilous migra­tion, while A Thou­sand Suns, which cen­tres around the lead actor of her uncle’s cel­e­brat­ed Tou­ki Bou­ki, is a melan­choly inter­sec­tion of per­son­al and nation­al his­to­ry. ​“My char­ac­ters rarely find them­selves where they want to be in the world,” she observes: a place from which many sto­ries are sure­ly yet to come.

The son of work­ing-class Sene­galese par­ents, Alain Gomis stud­ied at Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty but failed entrance exams to France’s lead­ing films schools. While teach­ing basic film­mak­ing to school­child­ren in the sub­urbs of Paris, he began mak­ing his short doc­u­men­taries. The idea for his debut fea­ture, L’Afrance, came about after see­ing his elder broth­er held in a French deten­tion cen­tre because he lacked the right papers. Gomis most recent film, Félic­ité, was nom­i­nat­ed for Best For­eign Lan­guage Film at the Acad­e­my Awards and won the Sil­ver Bear at the Berlin Film Fes­ti­val. Steeped in the sounds of Kinshasa’s live music scene, Félic­ité fol­lows a proud, free-willed Con­golese woman work­ing as a singer while try­ing to find a way to save her hos­pi­talised son.

Although her father Nouri is one of Tunisia’s best-known direc­tors, Ley­la Bouzid has man­aged to forge her own career path, work­ing as assis­tant direc­tor on fel­low Tunisian Abdel­latif Kechiche’s queer com­ing-of-age dra­ma, Blue is the Warmest Colour. Cur­rent­ly resid­ing in France, her 2015 debut feau­re As I Open My Eyes is a cin­e­mat­ic ode to her roots. Pre­mier­ing at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val, the film fol­lows a young Tunisian woman strug­gling against her family’s wish­es as she pur­sues a singing career just before the country’s Jas­mine Rev­o­lu­tion of 2010. It is an inti­mate explo­ration of the fear and self-cen­sor­ship that per­vades life in a police state.

Bouzid’s cast and crew were all first-timers, com­ple­ment­ing her belief in the region’s youth and cul­tur­al dynamism. She joins a strong recent crop of young film­mak­ers from the Maghreb who are revis­it­ing their recent nation­al his­to­ries, while intro­duc­ing glob­al audi­ences to a rest­less and cre­ative Afro-Arab youth culture.

Appo­line Traoré’s third fea­ture pre­miered at the Pan African Fes­ti­val of Cin­e­ma and Tele­vi­sion in Oua­gadougou (FES­PA­CO) in 2017, nar­row­ly miss­ing out on the grand prize to Gomis’ Félic­ité. In Bor­ders, the paths of four very dif­fer­ent women con­verge on a long road trip from Dakar to Lagos. When high­way rob­bers, fights between pas­sen­gers and vio­lence at bor­der cus­toms ensue, these women join forces.

At times fun­ny and always deeply affect­ing, the film high­lights the bar­ri­ers to the free move­ment of peo­ple in west Africa. It is also a uni­ver­sal sto­ry about the pow­er of female friend­ship, and the resource­ful­ness of women com­ing togeth­er to free them­selves from their patri­ar­chal envi­ron­ment. Tra­oré pre­vi­ous­ly explored the inter­sec­tion of gen­der and glob­al­i­sa­tion in her 2013 film My Zaphi­ra, about a Burk­in­abé moth­er push­ing against vil­lage tra­di­tions to give her daugh­ter a bet­ter life.

A grad­u­ate of the AFDA film school in Cape Town, Jen­na Cato Bass is a direc­tor, writer, cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and magi­cian. Her sec­ond fea­ture, High Fan­ta­sy, shot entire­ly on iPhone, debuted at the 2017 Annu­al New African Film Fes­ti­val in Wash­ing­ton DC. It fol­lows friends Lexi, Xoli, Tatiana and Tha­mi as they head to Lexi’s family’s iso­lat­ed North­ern Cape farm for an overnight camp­ing trip. When they awake the next morn­ing, they realise they have all swapped bod­ies – forc­ing these friends to exam­ine each other’s and their own iden­ti­ties, priv­i­leges, and hard­ships. Bass takes a time­ly, crit­i­cal look at South Africa’s ​“rain­bow nation” pol­i­tics, point­ing out that issues of race and gen­der can nev­er be over­looked in today’s world.