Machérie Ekwa Bahango
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Machérie Ekwa Bahango | |
|---|---|
 Machérie Ekwa Bahango at the Carthage Film Festival | |
| Born | 1993 |
| Alma mater | Protestant University |
| Occupation | Film director |
| Years active | 2014-present |
Machérie Ekwa Bahango (born 1993) is a filmmaker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[1] Her first feature film Maki’la premiered at the Berlinale 2018.[2] Her movie Sema advocated for women's rights and thematised the issue of sexual violence.[3] It won an award as "Best International Film" at the DC Independent Film Festival 2020 in Washington.[4]
Machérie Ekwa Bahango was born in Kisangani. After school she went to university and received a degree in law at the Protestant University in the Congo.[5] As a student she participated in workshops for screenplay and film production.[6][7]
Career
In 2014 Congolese film production company Labson Bizizi Ciné-Kongo hired Machérie Ekwa Bahango as a production manager and as an interviewer.
In 2016 she was a screenwriter for the French language TV series Ndakisa.[8] Produced by the NGO Search for Common Ground, Ndakisa was aired on Congolese national television.[9]
In 2017 she translated for Alain Gomis his script for his 2017 film Félicité into her native language Lingala .[2]
Also in 2017 she was invited to the Cannes Film Festival for a round table under the helm of the OIF and the Institut Français. At the end of 2017 she received invitations from the Berlin International Film Festival for the Berlinale Talents.[10]
Her first feature film Mak’ila as was about an orphan forced to fend for herself on the streets of Kinshasa. It was stalled in post-production for lack of funds until Alain Modot, of the International Distribution of Films and Fiction from Africa (DIFFA), gained backing from Orange Studio in Paris.[2] Mak’ila won her the Golden Screen award at the 2018 Ecrans Noirs film festival.[11]
Her second feature film told the story of a family during the Second Congo War. It was announced under the title Zaïria in 2019.[12][13] Yet due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic all her projects came then to a halt and contacts to some production partners faded away.[14]
In 2020 the 48-minute film Sema was released. It was based on an idea by Denis Mukwege, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.[15]
In 2022 she was among the 20 shortlisted candidates selected by Netflix and UNESCO to take part in the short film competition ‘African Folktales, Reimagined’.[16][17]
Filmography
| Title | Year | Film producer | Writer | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maki'la[18] | 2018 | No | Yes | Yes | Bahango met with street children of Kinshasa and based the script on what they told her about their lives [2] |
| Zaïria[12] | 2019 | No | Yes | Yes | Dedicated to the victims of wars in Africa. Unfinished. |
| Sema (Speak out)[19] | 2020 | No | No | Yes | Bahango directed real survivors of sexual violence who re-enacted their fates as written down by themselves [20] |
| Boyoma[21] | 2022 | No | Yes | Yes | documentary film in development |
