Channel 1
PODCAST | This interview is about director and screenwriter Kantarama Gahigiri, selected for this year edition of Berlinale Talents 2021.
To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture
Kantarama is an award winning filmmaker. She writes and directs films set in East Africa, Switzerland and the United States. Her first feature film “Tapis Rouge” has been screened and awarded worldwide including TV5Monde Best Feature Film at Geneva International Film Festival (2014) and Best Directing at Chelsea Film Festival (New York) in 2015, followed by a national theatrical release in France, May 2017.
In 2018 she became one of the 5 residents for the 3rd Edition at “Realness – An African Screenwriter’s Residency” selected after evaluation of more than 130 projects from the whole continent. Following the residency, Kantarama was invited as a delegate to the Atlas Workshops (Marrakech International Film Festival) in December 2018.
The other films she directed garnered praise and won awards internationally. Including: 2 seasons of the short TV series Me+U, a comedy she created and directed. And the short video Pinot In The Grass which won the Award of Merit – Special Mention at Los Angeles IndieFEST 2014.
Since 2014, she also teaches directing, writing & producing workshops to help younger artists implement their work (in Rwanda, Brazil, Switzerland, Tunisia, Kenya, Tanzania and Malaysia).
In 2004, Kantarama was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and a Swiss Benevolent Scholarship.
As a freelance producer, she has been working on various films, TV and commercials in Uganda, Rwanda and the United States.
To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.
