Idrissou Mora Kpai

Director

Biography

Benin

Born in Benin in 1967, Idrissou Mora Kpai studied in Germany at the University of Film and TV at Potsdam-Babelsberg where he graduated with an MFA in film directing. Since then, Idrissou has founded the production company MKJ Films in Paris and produced and directed several documentaries, including The Queen Mother (Si-Gueriki – 2002), Arlit, deuxième Paris (2005) and Indochina, Traces of a Mother (2011), all of which have been presented at international festivals and garnered numerous accolades and prizes. His other accomplishments include being an artist in residence at Cornell University, USA, and being a visiting assistant professor at Duke University, USA where he taught at the Arts of the Moving Image department and African & African American Studies department. He is a recipient of the prestigious Dutch Prince Claus Award (2013) for his artistic achievements dedicated to promote social change in the Global South. Idrissou’s 2019 film, America Street explores the daily struggles of an African-American community in a quickly gentrifying historical black neighborhood in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, just after the 2015 Walter Scott killing. Biography Source

Filmography

VIDEO Model (1994)
Ausländer (1994)
Transient (1996)
Fake Soldier (1999)
The Queen Mother [Si-Gueriki] (2002)
Arlit, deuxième Paris (2005)
Indochina, Traces of a Mother (2011)
America Street (2019)

Films Curated by AFF