Keynote: Jean Marie-Teno (interviewed by Orwa Nyrabia)

Jean-Marie Teno is Africa’s preeminent documentary filmmaker. For almost four decades, he has been producing and directing films about the inheritance of a colonial system in Cameroon and the wider African continent. With a critical eye and a sharp wit, he questions the established truth, exposes the censored stories, and examines the past to comprehend the complex realities of Africa's present. In this keynote session, IDFA's artistic director Orwa Nyrabia interviews Jean-Marie Teno about his craft and the issues of representation within societies that are still struggling to decolonize themselves.

Teno’s films have been honored at festivals worldwide and he has been a guest of the Flaherty Seminar, an artist in residence at CalArts and the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley, and a lecturer at many universities. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’s documentary branch.