During the Women’s History month, we try to celebrate women in every way we can. Most especially we try to celebrate women who are active in the movie industries all over Africa. They are women who have dedicated their lives and careers to telling authentic African stories through movies. It is their means of informing the world of the beauty of Africa while touching lives with the African stories they are telling.
Demand Africa led the way with the celebration of African movies and women this month. In a project titled African Women In Film, the leading African films streaming platform interviewed 4 female African directors. Wanuri Kahiu, Nikyatu Jusu, Michelle Bello, and Idil Ibrahim, told their stories and plans for African movie industries.
Wanuri Kahiu
The Kenyan film director, writer and producer has received several awards for her works as a filmmaker. She is credited for writing Afrofuturism stories and is known for ‘The Wooden Camel’, ‘From a Whispers’, ‘Rusties’ and ‘Rafiki’ (which generated many controversies in Kenya). She is also the co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a media house dedicated to supporting African art.
Idil Ibrahim
Somali American actress, writer and producer, Idil Ibrahim has been a part of many award-winning film projects. She is an alumnus of the ‘Tribeca All Access’, an initiative of Tribeca Film Institute in conjunction with Tribeca Film Festival. She has also been participating in humanitarian activities as well as teaching documentary film production.
Michelle Bello
Michelle Bello is a British Nigerian film director and producer, and the CEO of Blu Star Entertainment Limited. Over the years, she has made several short films and a music video. Her third feature film is currently in development after ‘Flower Girl’ won her several accolades.
Nikyatu Jusu
Nikyatu Jusu is an assistant professor in Film and Video at George Mason University. The independent filmmaker channels her stories on the complexity of female characters. Through the years she has lectured at many institutes, including the Tribeca Film Institute.
In 2017, she and her co-writer received a full production funding from the Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaking Program (Through the Lens) for the production of the feature film ‘Suicide by Sunlight’. The film is currently in post-production.
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