Ousmane Samassékou just won the main DOX:Award at the 2021 CPH:DOX for his second feature-length documentary, The Last Shelter (Le dernier refuge, 2021). The film is an intimate portrait of the lives of Esther, Khady, Natacha, and several other individuals who pass through the House of Migrants, a refuge in Gao, Mali, as they embark upon or return from their tumultuous journey across the Sahara in hopes of reaching Europe. The film also screened at Hot Docs and is in competition at Doc.fest Munich. Aïcha Macky’s film Zinder (2020) had its world premiere at the Visions du Réel festival, where it entered the feature-length documentary international competition before going on to the Change Makers program at CPH:DOX. It is now competing in the Official Selection Competition at DOK.fest in Munich. Zinder, the second largest city in Niger, and where Aïcha was born and raised, became her camera’s focus once she earned the trust of gang members from the disadvantaged neighborhood of Kara Kara. By telling their story with them as opposed to about them, Zinder changes the narrative about the lives of gang members, not only in that country, but across the world. Ousmane’s and Aïcha’s films are the first two films that figure among those selected for the Generation Africa project in collaboration with STEPS South Africa, a series of short and feature-length documentaries made across Africa that seeks to create new narratives on migration from youth perspectives across the continent.

I spoke with Ousmane Samassekou (OS) and Aïcha Macky (AM) about their films, their collaborations, the inspirations for their films, their documentary auteur styles, and reception and funding.