Top 100 African Directors

Togo Mizrahi was born on 2 June 1901 in Alexandria, Egypt. He was a director and writer, known for Doctor Epaminondas (1937), Nuruddin wa el-Bahharah el-Thalathah (1944) and Kapetan Skorpios (1938). He died on 5 June 1986 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Born in South Africa, Henry Cornelius traveled to Europe, where he worked as an actor and director in stage productions in Germany, France and England. In 1933, with the Nazi takeover of Germany, Cornelius left Germany for France, and studied at the Sorbonne. He hooked up with director René Clair and went to England with Clair for The Ghost Goes West (1935) as an assistant editor. He worked his way up the ranks to editor and returned to South Africa, writing documentaries and producing and directing films there. After the end of World War II he went back to England, working as an associate producer and writer. He made his directorial debut with Passport to Pimlico (1949), a well-received comedy from Ealing about a neighborhood in London that, after the war, discovers that it is really not a part of England, and declares its independence. He was also responsible for the delightful Genevieve (1953), a charming comedy about an auto club's annual race between Brighton and London.

Cornelius only directed two more films before his death, at age 44, in London in 1958.

Youssef Chahine (born in Alexandria, Egypt, 1926) started studying in a friars' school, and then turned to Victoria College until the High School Certificate. After one year in the University of Alexandria, he moved to the U.S. and spent two years at the Pasadena Play House, taking courses on film and dramatic arts. After coming back to Egypt, cinematographer Alevise Orfanelli helped him into the film business. His film debut was Baba Amin (1950): one year later, with Son of the Nile (1951) he was first invited to the Cannes Film festival. In 1970, he was awarded a Golden Tanit at the Carthage Festival. With Le moineau (1973), he directed the first Egypt-Algeria co-production. He won a Silver Bear in Berlin for Alexandria... Why? (1979), the first installment in what proved to be an autobiographic trilogy, completed with Hadduta Masriya (1982)(An Egyptian Story (1982)) and Alexandria: Again and Forever (1989).

In 1992, Jacques Lassalle proposed him to stage a piece of his choice for Comédie Française: Chahine chose to adapt Albert Camus' "Caligula," which proved hugely successful. The same year he started writing Al-mohager (1994), a story inspired by the Biblical character of Joseph, son of Jacob. This had long been a dream-project, and he finally got to shoot it in 1994. In 1997, 46 years and 5 invitations later, he was again selected Hors Competition in Cannes with Destiny (1997).

An Egyptian director and writer, born 1910 to a Sudanese father and a Turkish mother. He completed his university studies in Germany and joined the German Film Institute there, then returned to Egypt in mid 1930s, where he worked as an editor at Studio Misr, then as an assistant director at first with Youssef Wahbi, and before long, he started directing his own films. He presented a large number of films, some of which he co-wrote, and also participated in creating the visual effects for. His films include: Platform No. 5, Abu Hadid, and The Secret of Vanishing Cap. He was murdered in 1986 by an unknown person.

Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi is known for À la recherche du mari de ma femme (1992), Badis (1989) and Fatema, La Sultane Inoubliable (2022).

Abdelmajid R'Chich is known for Les trésors de l'Atlas (1997).

Chadi Abdel Salam was born on 15 March 1930 in Alexandria , Egypt. He was an art director and writer, known for The Mummy (1969), El Fetewa (1957) and The Eloquent Peasant (1970). He died on 9 October 1986 in Cairo, Egypt.

Mohamed Zinet was born on 16 January 1932 in Algiers, Algeria. He was an actor and director, known for Tahia ya didou! (1971), Les Mains Libres (1964) and Madame Rosa (1977). He was married to Anne Papillault. He died on 10 April 1995 in Bondy, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.

Hamid Benani was born in 1940 in Meknes, Morocco. He is a director and writer, known for La prière de l'absent (1995), L'enfant cheikh (2012) and Wechma (1971).

The director of seven shorts and seven full-length feature films, Saleh graduated in 1949 in English literature and was trained in cinema in Paris until 1951. Tewfik Saleh's oeuvre is the only one in Egyptian cinema which may be considered purely "Third Worldist". All his films deal with social injustice, underdevelopment, political abuse and the class struggle.

His first film, Darb al-mahabil (1955), co-written by Naguib Mahfouz, was set in a popular neighborhood but represented a kind of allegory of greed and materialism, dismantling the opportunism of the alley's inhabitants who chase a mentally retarded homeless person after they learn he has won the lottery. It took Saleh another seven years to direct his Sira' al-abtal (1962), set during the cholera epidemic of the 1930s. It featured Shukri Sarhan as a leftist country doctor who battles not only against the disease, but also against the peasant's ignorance, the midwife's intrigues and the egocentric interests of the feudal landowner.

Saleh's next films were produced by the General Film Organization. His Yaumiyat na'ib fi-l-aryaf (1969), taken from 'Taufiq al-Hakim''s novel, counts among the best adaptations. Yet he often came up against censorship and bureaucracy. Al-moutamarridoune (1968) and Al-sayyid bulti (1969) (in English: "Mister Fish"), both had to wait two years until their release. In the case of "Mister Fish", which deals with the struggle of working fishermen against a monopolist, the censor used a scene of two young women occupied with removing the hair from their legs to postpone the release of the film.

Finally, in the early 70s, Saleh left the country. His The Dupes (1972), produced by the Syrian National Film Organization and adapted from Ghassan Kanafani's novel "Men Under the Sun", was one of the first Arab films to move away from a melodramatic approach to the Palestinian question and to express scepticism regarding regarding pan-Arab solidarity. Saleh's last feature Al-ayyam al-tawila (1980) was produced by the Iraqi Theatre and Film Organization, and presented _Saddam Hussein_ as a patriotic guerilla. Saleh, who had moved to Iraq in 1973 in order to teach cinema, returned to Egypt in the mid-1980s to teach at the Higher Film Institute.

Born the son of a Muslim cleric in Colobane, near Dakar, Senegal, Djibril Diop Mambéty received no formal training in filmmaking. He experimented with theater, but in 1968, he was asked to leave an avant-garde theater group. Shortly thereafter, he made his first film short called Badou Boy (1970), which dealt with the life of a young renegade. By 1973, he directed his first feature, Touki Bouki (1973), about disaffected youth, and it became an instant classic. It would be nearly twenty years before he would create another film, Hyenas (1992), which is considered a sequel to "Touki Bouki" and a parable based on the classic play "The Visit" by Frederich Durrenmatt. Although his films were considered to be politically oriented, Mambéty rejected the realism preferred by most African filmmakers. His films were notable for their dream-like quality that left the themes of his films entirely to the interpretation of the viewer; this was, of course, the desired effect. In spite of the fact that Mambéty only completed a few short films and a meager two full-length features, the quality of his short body of work has rendered him legendary status among African filmmakers and, indeed, the international film community.

Ola Balogun was born in 1945 in Aba, Nigeria. He is a director and writer, known for A Deusa Negra (1979), Ija Ominira (1979) and Cry Freedom! (1981).

Mostafa Derkaoui is known for Cinders of the Vineyard (1976), Hmida Ejayeh (2023) and Titre provisoire (1984).

The first film director from an African country to achieve international recognition, Ousmane Sembene remains the major figure in the rise of an independent post-colonial African cinema. Sembene's roots were not, as might be expected, in the educated élite. After working as a mechanic and bricklayer, he joined the Free French forces in 1942, serving in Africa and France. In 1946, he returned to Dakar, where he participated in the great railway strike of 1947. The next year he returned to France, where he worked in a Citröen factory in Paris, and then, for ten years, on the dock in Marseilles. During this time Sembene became very active in trade union struggles and began an extraordinarily successful writing career. His first novel, "Le Docker Noir", was published in 1956 to critical acclaim. Since then, he has produced a number of works which have placed him in the foreground of the international literary scene. Long an avid filmgoer, Sembene became aware that to reach a mass audience of workers and preliterate Africans outside urban centers, cinema was a more effective vehicle than the written word. In 1961, he traveled to Moscow to study film at VGIK and then to work at the Gorky Studios. Upon his return to Senegal, Sembene turned his attention to filmmaking and, after two short films, he wrote and directed his first feature, Black Girl (1966)(english title: Black Girl). Received with great enthusiasm at a number of international film festivals, it also won the prestigious Jean Vigo Prize for its director. Shot in a simple, quasi-documentary style probably influenced by the French New Wave, BLACK GIRL tells the tragic story of a young Senegalese woman working as a maid for an affluent French family on the Riviera, focusing on her sense of isolation and growing despair. Her country may have been "decolonized," but she is still a colonial -- a non-person in the colonizers' world. Sembene's next film, Mandabi (1968) (english title: The Money Order), marked a sharp departure. Based on his novel of the same name and shot in color in two language versions--French and Wolof, the main dialect of Senegal--THE MONEY ORDER is a trenchant and often delightfully witty satire of the new bourgeoisie, torn between outmoded patriarchal traditions and an uncaring, rapacious and inefficient bureaucracy. Emitai (1971) records the struggle of the Diola people of the Casamance region of Senegal (where Sembene grew up) against the French authorities during WWII. Shot in Diola dialect and French from an original script, EMITAI offers a respectful but unromanticized depiction of an ancient tribal culture, while highlighting the role of women in the struggle against colonialist oppression. In Xala (1975), Sembene again takes on the native bourgeoisie, this time in the person of a rich, partially Westernized Moslem businessman afflicted by "xala" (impotence) on the night of his wedding to a much younger third wife. Outsiders (1977), considered by many to be Sembene's masterpiece, departs from the director's customary realist approach, documenting the struggle over the last centuries of an unspecified African society against the incursions of Islam and European colonialism. Featuring a strong female central character, CEDDO is a powerful evocation of the African experience.

Jean-Pierre Dikongue-Pipa was born in 1940 in Cameroon. He is a director and writer, known for The Child of Another (1975), Le prix de la liberté (1978) and Badiaga (1987).

Djouhra Abouda is known for Ali au pays des merveilles (1975), La montagne de Baya (1997) and Cinéma 16 (1975).

Safi Faye was born on 22 November 1943 in Dakar, Senegal. She was a director and writer, known for Mossane (1996), Fad'jal (1979) and Letter from My Village (1976). She died on 22 February 2023 in Paris, France.

Adamu Halilu is known for Shaihu Umar (1976), Mama Learns a Lesson (1963) and Zainab (1982).

Salah Abu Seif was one of the most famous Egyptian film directors and is considered to be the father of Neorealist cinema in Egyptian cinema. Many of his films are considered Egyptian classics; 11 of Abu Seif's films are included in the list of the 100 best Egyptian films, according to the critics' poll, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first cinema show in Alexandria (1896-1996).

Abu Seif graduated from Cairo's College of Commerce and Economics in 1932 while working as a freelance reporter covering movie stars. His path to filmmaking began when he met Egyptian director Niazi Mostafa during a factory shoot, where Abu Seif worked as a clerk. This encounter led to a job as a film editor, and he spent a decade at Studio Misr, first as an accountant and later as an editor.

In 1939, Abu Seif won a scholarship to study film in Paris. Within five years of his return in 1942, he had established himself as one of the most avant-garde second generation film-makers in the country. He pioneered shooting on location - though he also used reconstructions - in places none of his predecessors had dared to visit, like ghurza (the equivalent of old Chinese opium dens), brothels and impoverished areas whose existence had never been officially acknowledged.

Med Hondo was born on 4 May 1935 in Aïn-Béni-Mathar, Morocco. He was an actor and director, known for Sarraounia (1986), Oh, Sun (1970) and Arabs and Niggers, Your Neighbours (1974). He died on 2 March 2019 in Paris, France.

Ahmed Bouanani was born on 16 November 1938 in Casablanca, Morocco. He was an editor and writer, known for Assarab (1979), Bye-Bye Souirty (1998) and Naitou l'orpheline (1984). He died on 6 February 2011 in Demnate, Morocco.

Farouk Beloufa was born on 9 April 1947 in Oued Fodda, Algeria. He was a writer and director, known for Nahla (1979), Return of the Prodigal Son (1978) and Le Silence Du Sphinx (2010). He died on 9 April 2018 in Paris, France.

Jamie Uys was an internationally acclaimed film director who completed 24 films. Prizes for his work included the 1981 Grand Prix at the Festival International du Film de Comedy Vevey for 'The Gods Must be Crazy' and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association award for best documentary in 1974 for 'Beautiful People' aka 'Animals are Beautiful People'. 'The Gods Must be Crazy' enjoyed three years of uninterrupted screening in the United States.

Ibrahim Shaddad is a writer, theater and film director. He studied film production in Germany at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf (at that time Academy for Film and Television of the GDR), worked in Germany, Egypt and predominantly in Sudan. Most of his theatrical and cinematic work has been banned by different regimes in Sudan. Some of his films have won awards in international film festivals.

Kabore started out as a history student at the Centre d'Etudes Superieures d'Histoire d'Ouagadougou and continued his studies in Paris where he received an MA. During his studies he became interested in how Africa was portrayed abroad, which then led him, in 1974, to study cinematography at the Ecole Superieure d'Etudes Cinematographiques. Further inspiration came upon viewing Ousmane Sembene's Xala, which he saw as an example of how film could be used to express African culture. After returning to Africa, Kabore was made director of the Centre National du Cinema and taught at the Institut African d'Education Cinematographique. Along with students under his direction there he made his first film, 'Je Reviens De Bokin' (I Come From Bokin).

Kabore went on to produce practical documentaries such as 1978's, 'Stockez et conservez les grains' (Store and Conserve the Grain), which focused on agrarian concerns. Another kind of documentary he made in this early period, 'Regard sur le VI'eme FESPACO' (A Look at the 6th FESPACO) evidenced his concern for and promotion of African film. Kabore's first feature, Wend Kuuni (1982) was a breakthrough for African cinema notable for the way it translated African oral tradition to the screen. Next, Kabore returned to address the issues surrounding African cinema with a documentary, 'Props sur le cinema' (Reflections on the cinema) (1986). The short film featured two significant African directors, 'Souleymane Cisse' from Mali and Mauritania born Med Hondo discussing the problems facing filmmakers on the continent. He followed this with his second feature, Zan Boko (1988) which tells the story of a wealthy businessman who takes away ancestral land from a poor village peasant in order to build a swimming pool. The film focuses not only on the conflict of class struggle but also that of tradition and modernity in postcolonial civilization.

Before his next feature Kabore again returned with a short documentary, Madame Hado (1991), about Mrs. Hado, a celebrated Burkinabe singer and dancer. Kabore was then invited to contribute to the BBC's 'Developing Stories', a series of six films by talented filmmakers from the developing world focusing on environmental and developmental issues. He offered _Rabi (1993)_, which won the first prize for young people's films at the Okomedia International Ecological Film Festival. Another mark of Kabore's international recognition was his participation in the film, Lumière and Company (1995) in which 40 directors from around the world were asked to make a short film with the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumiere Brothers. His most recent feature Buud Yam (1997) was the 1997 grand-prize winner of the FESPACO.