MAMADOU DIA
Grad Film Alum Mamadou Dia has been awarded a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship in the Film-Video category. Dia was one of 171 individuals selected from nearly 2,500 applicants spanning 48 different scholarly disciplines.
Mamadou Dia is a Senegalese director whose feature film 'Baamum Nafi' (Nafi’s father in Fulani) premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2019 where it won the best first feature award and the golden leopard in the section "Filmmakers of the Present". The film has been shown in over 80 festivals worldwide. 'Baamum Nafi' was Senegal's official entry for the Oscars 2021.
With his company, Joyedidi, co-founded with Maba Ba, they toured Senegal with an inflatable screen to show the film in open air places. 'Baamum Nafi' had a theatrical release in Senegal and France. His previous film 'Samedi Cinema' premiered at the Venice and Toronto festivals in 2016. Joyedidi is producing a second feature (in post-production) and working on various projects from different countries.
Mamadou tries in his films to explore the fine line between reality and fiction by drawing on his personal and professional experiences. Prior to film school, he worked as a journalist based in Dakar, Senegal for agencies like The Associated Press, Agence France Presse.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation offers fellowships to exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form, under the freest possible conditions.
See the full list of 2023 Guggenheim Fellows here.