Apolline Traoré, the successful Burkinabe film director

Apolline Traoré, the head of the production company « Les Films Selmon », is a successful figure in Burkinabe cinema. With around twenty films made to date, the filmmaker and director has distinguished herself several times nationally and internationally. Her latest feature film, “Sira” (2023), competed for the Oscars in the United States in March 2024.

Passionate about cinema since her childhood, Apolline Traoré has succeeded, in 20 years of career, in becoming one of the prominent Burkinabe directors and filmmakers in Africa and internationally. She has won awards at various festivals around the world, thanks to her films which deal with key issues of Burkinabe and African society.

It was at Emerson College in Boston, USA, that she trained in cinema, obtaining a degree in Media Art in 1998. Until 2001, she worked in Los Angeles with independent directors. Her documentary, “Symbole burkinabé”, made as a student, won the Jury Prize at the Fespaco Festival in 2001. She made other short films, such as “Le Prix de l’Ignorance” in 2001, “Kounandi” in 2003, as well as the feature film “Sous la clarté de la lune” in 2004 which won the Best Music Award at Fespaco.

In 2005, she decided to return to her country, Burkina Faso, to devote herself to cinema. She worked with the Burkinabe director Idrissa Ouédraogo, and produced television series, short films, and feature films, which made her famous.

Her television series “Le Testament” produced in 2009 and 2010 was broadcast on the Burkinabe public channel, RTB, but also on CFI and TV5. It won the Prize for the Best Series in Vues d’Afrique in 2010. With her feature film “Moi, Zaphira”, which she produced in 2013, she received the Prize for Best Female Actress at Fespaco, as well as the OIF Prize for the best feature film.

After her films “Frontières” (2017), “Desrances” (2019) which also won several awards, she directed “Sira” in 2023. A film dealing with the security crisis in the Sahel and terrorism and which has won many awards. It was attributed the Silver Stallion at Fespaco in 2023, the Best Director Award at the African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) in Nigeria in 2023, the “Audience Award” at the Berlinale 2023, as well as the “Exchange Awards” Grand Prize at the World Cinema Amsterdam. In 2023, at the International Festival of Images Films for Women in Zimbabwe, it won the Audience Award, as well as the “Best Foreign Film Award” at the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York. In March 2024, “Sira” represented Burkina Faso at the Oscars in the United States.

With a rich and inspiring film career, Apolline Traoré was decorated in 2019 as a knight of the Burkinabe Order of Merit, Arts, Letters and Communication. She was appointed Ambassador of the National Museum of Burkina Faso in 2020 and received the Medal for the Fight of Women in Cinema at the Luxor Festival in Egypt in 2022.