The director of "Timbuktu" is recognized with the Konrad Wolf Prize for his body of work, films which reflect on experiences in Mali, Mauritania or Moscow.
Film director Abderrahmane Sissako Image: Joel SagetAFP/Getty Images
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Abderrahmane Sissako, who was born in Kiffa in Mauritania in 1961, is considered one of the most important filmmakers on the African continent.
He grew up in Mali, and then went to study filmmaking in Moscow from 1983 to 1989 — incidentally, at the same institute where Konrad Wolf, whose name has been given to the prize awarded by Berlin's Academy of Arts (AdK).
In his short film October (1993), Sissako reflected on his experiences as a Black man in the Soviet Union.
He then moved to Paris in the 1990s, where he is still living.
His documentary Rostov-Luanda (1997) was shown at the Documenta art show.
Sissako's films are renowned for expanding reality through different narrative levels, creating new perspectives on current developments.
Contemporary African filmmakers: Names to remember
From Nollywood to Netflix, these contemporary African directors are shaking up the world of film and TV with bold new narratives and aesthetics.
Image: Damien Grenon/Photo12/picture alliance
Tsitsi Dangarembga
Dangarembga is not only a filmmaker but also successfully writes novels and screenplays, including for the film 1993 "Neria" that went on to become the most-watched film in Zimbabwe. In 2020, Dangarembga was arrested in Harare at a protest against government corruption and still faces trial a year later.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/D. Roland
Wanuri Kahiu
Born in Nairobi in 1980, the director had a global cinema success with her 2018 film "Rafiki." The first Kenyan film shown at the Cannes Film Festival, it portrays a love affair between two young Kenyan women and was banned in her home country. Kahui is now off to Hollywood, where she will direct "The Thing about Jellyfish," based on the acclaimed novel by Ali Benjamin.
Image: Damien Grenon/Photo12/picture alliance
Kemi Adetiba
The Nigerian filmmaker, who also makes television series and music videos, is a big name in Nollywood — which is what people call Nigerian cinema, the second most productive in the world after Indian film. Commercially, Adetiba's feature films are hugely successful. She is producing her next film, a sequel to her blockbuster "King of Boys," exclusively for Netflix.
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Kunle Afolayan
The Nigerian director is one of the most important representatives of the new Nigerian cinema ("New Nollywood"), which is characterized by narrative complexity, a new aesthetic — and a much bigger budget. Afolayan's thriller "The Figurine — Araromire" (2009), one of Nigeria's most commercially successful films, is considered to have launched the movement.
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Abderrahmane Sissako
Sissako's films deal with topics including globalization, terrorism and exile. Born in Mauritania and raised in Mali, the film director and producer is considered one of the best-known filmmakers from sub-Saharan Africa. His 2014 film "Timbuktu" was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars and won several prizes at France's Cesar Awards as well as at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Philippe Lacote
The film director from the Ivory Coast most recently premiered "La Nuit des Roies" (2020) at the Venice International Film Festival. The film, reminiscent of the stories from the "One Thousand and One Nights" Arabian folk takes, tells the story of convicted criminal named Zama who becomes a convincing storyteller in order to survive at La Maca prison in the Ivory Coast capital, Abidjan.
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Macherie Ekwa Bahango
Promising new talent: The 27-year-old director from the Democratic Republic of Congo saw her film "Maki'La" debut at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival. The young self-taught director spent three years working on her first feature film, which is the story of a group of street children in Kinshasa. The film won top prize at the Ecrans Noirs African film festival in Cameroon.
Image: DW/A. Steffes-Halmer
Moussa Toure
Moussa Toure is a Senegalese film director, producer and screenwriter and has long been a major figure in African cinema. His feature films and documentaries are often political. Toure describes his 2012 film "La Pirogue," which tells the story of refugees' journey by boat from Africa to Europe, as a "slap in the face of the Senegalese government."
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In his 1998 feature film, La Vie Sur Terre (Life on Earth), he shows how the change of millennium is not a concern for the inhabitants of a Mauritanian village.
With Bamako (2006), Sissako demonstrated his skills as a director "who knows how to combine the political with the poetic," according to the jury of the AdK. The documentary film follows a fictional court case on the African continent against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
His biggest international success to date came in 2014 with the film Timbuktu, a drama in which parts of Mali are occupied by radical jihadists who introduce inhumane regulations and punishments such as stoning.
The film was nominated in the competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and for an Oscar abroad.
According to the AdK press statement, Timbuktu is "terrifyingly topical given the current situation in Afghanistan."
Sissako's films have been regularly selected to compete in international film festivals.
In 2003 he served as a member of the Berlinale jury and was also on Cannes' jury in 2007.
This year's jury of the Konrad Wolf Prize said that they were awarding the honor to "one of the most important filmmakers from Sub-Saharan Africa," whose films celebrate "the silver screen as a powerful place from which humanitarian and educational impulses emanate."
Sissako has remained "a pioneer who knows how to reinvent himself as a director with every film," the jury added.
Since 1986, the AdK in Berlin has been awarding the Konrad Wolf Prize, endowed with €5,000 ($5,800), for outstanding artistic achievements in the fields of film, media and performance arts.
