Locarno 2025: Spotlight on African Women’s Filmmaking

Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda

Congolese-Iranian filmmaker Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda (based in South Africa/Sierra Leone) bridges African and Iranian narratives through films like Where My Memory Began (2024, screened at Locarno), We Will Be Who We Are (2025), and First Time My Family Met Me (2021). As founder of the Collective for Black Iranians and Siyah Productions, she creates cultural hubs countering racial erasure in Southwest Asia/North Africa (SWANA). A former human rights lawyer (Sorbonne/NYU) who negotiated child soldier releases for the UN, she left USC’s School of Cinematic Arts to pursue her childhood vision born in Tehran: centering Black Iranian identity. At Locarno, she discussed her doctoral research in Cape Town, her films, and co-founding House of Salone, a creative agency advancing critical storytelling.

Interview:

 

Patience Nitu Nitumwesiga

Ugandan filmmaker Patience Nitumwesiga (who prefers “Nitu”) presented her short Jangu (2022) in Open Doors Screenings. Based in Tanzania, she explores precolonial values, African utopianism, and gender deconstruction across documentaries, fiction, and theatre. After training at Makerere University and Prospero Performing Arts Centre (Sweden/Denmark), she wrote/directed the play Monsters (2017, translated to French) and developed TV series Yat Madit as writer/script editor. Her directing career includes the documentary Everybody Needs an Electrician (2012) and debut feature How To Forget Your Name (2024), with her upcoming film The Woman Who Poked The Leopard (2025) profiling Ugandan activist Dr. Stella Nyanzi. A published poet and co-founder of SHAGIKA Productions, Nitu discussed at Locarno her stage-to-cinema transition, collaborations with director Claus Schrowange, and new projects.

Interview:

 

Firouz E. Pillet, Locarno

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