Biography

Idrissou Mora-Kpai is an award winning filmmaker whose films have been screened world-wide at prestigious festivals, such as Berlin, Rotterdam, Vienna, Milano, Busan, Sheffield. Born in Benin, West Africa, Idrissou’s social documentaries tackle post-colonial African societies, African migrations and diasporas.
 
Filmography: "Fugace" (1996) and "Fake Soldiers" (1999) are two narrative shorts inspired by Afro-German experiences. The documentary film Si­Gueriki, released in 2003, is an intimate and personal story about Idrissou’s return to his home village in Benin. In this film, he attempts, after years of estrangement, to establish a relationship with his mother. In the process, he also learns about the rapidly changing role of women in rural Benin. His second documentary film Arlit, the Second Paris denounces multinationals’ exploitation of Africa’s raw materials, their disregard for workers, and the injustices and inequalities of North‐South relations. Indochina ­ Traces of a Mother, another documentary feature released in 2011, tells the story of African colonial soldiers forcefully conscripted to fight for the vanishing French Empire in Indochina and the fate of their mixed‐race children. Joe’s Corner Store, a documentary feature in post-production, explores the daily struggles of an African-American community in a quickly gentrifying historical black neighborhood in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, just after the Walter Scott killing.