Fatoumata Diawara

Overview

Known for
Acting
Gender
Other
Birthday
Jan 01, 1982 (43 years old)

Fatoumata Diawara

Known For

Fatoumata Diawara : carte blanche
Movie 2022

Fatoumata Diawara : carte blanche

Angélique Kidjo aux Concerts Volants
Movie 2019

Angélique Kidjo aux Concerts Volants

Yao
1h 43m
Movie 2019

Yao

From his village in northern Senegal, Yao is a 13-year-old boy ready to do anything to meet his hero: Seydou Tall, a famous French actor. Invited to Dakar to promote his new book, the latter goes to his country of origin for the first time. To fulfill his dream, the young Yao organizes his fugue and brave 387 kilometers alone to the capital. Touched by this child, the actor decides to flee his obligations and to accompany him home. But on the dusty and uncertain roads of Senegal, Seydou understands that while rolling towards the village of the child, it also rolls towards its roots.

Mali Blues
1h 30m
Movie 2016

Mali Blues

Mali's Music defines the country's cultural identity. Radical Islamists are threatening the musicians. Together with the stars of Malian Global Pop - Fatoumata Diawara, Bassekou Kouyaté Master Soumy and Ahmed Ag Kaedi - we embark on a musical journey to Mali's agitated heart. Can their music reconcile the country?

Soleils
1h 35m
Movie 2014

Soleils

An old man is entrusted in curing a young girl struck by amnesia. He takes her on a healing trip, eccentric and joyous, to Ouagadougou by way of the Cape, Berlin, Mali, Belgium… In their travels full of surprises, they meet characters both remarkable and luminous, or ignorant, with set ideas, some fabulous creatures, and a text hidden deep in a continent that reveals a well-kept secret: Africa has something to tell us.

Morbayassa
2h 0m
Movie 2014

Morbayassa

Bella, a 30-year-old Guinean cabaret singer, lives a miserable, dangerous life as a prostitute in Dakar. Though she longs for escape, a gang of pimps, led by Kèba, treat her like property and make sure she keeps in her place. Her only hope is the thought of earning enough money to escape and reunite with her daughter, who she gave up at birth at age 15—a desperate act that haunts Bella’s nightmares and fills her with guilt. While fleeing an angry client, she meets Yélo, a Guinean worker for the United Nations, who happens to be passing through Dakar. Instantly smitten, Yélo agrees to help Bella, and so begins an epic journey of redemption, from Guinea to Paris. But can the young couple escape the clutches of the menacing Kèba?

Biography

Born in 19822, Fatoumata Diawara spent her early years in Abidjan in a large family. Her mother is a dancer. His father runs an association of traditional shows. He introduced her to dance and the guitar. At the age of 9, after the sudden death of an older sister, she was adopted by her actress aunt who lives in Mali. In 1997, Fatoumata Diawara was spotted by the filmmaker Cheick Oumar Sissoko who hired her in the film La Genèse (prize "Un certain regard" at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999) in order to interpret the leading female role. In 1998, she left for France to work at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord on Jean-Louis Sagot-Duvauroux's adaptation of the play Antigone. She appeared in several feature films including Sìa: Le Rêve du python2 (Special Jury Prize at Fespaco in 2001). In 2002, she fled a forced marriage with her cousin to join the Royal luxury company and spent six years in the troupe1. According to Jean-Luc Courcoult, "She could sing a little, she could not play well, but I was looking for a temperament, something else". In November 2006, she was chosen to play the leading female role of the Opéra du Sahel, in Bamako. It was then that she was noticed by Cheick Tidiane Seck. She participated in the recording of Dee Dee Bridgewater's album. During this same period, she met Oumou Sangaré who asked her to record her album Seya. Fatoumata Diawara then decides to embark on the adventure of music and begins to work on her own repertoire. She also continues her experiences in the cinema, playing in particular in the film It's going to rain on Conakry by the Guinean director Cheick Fantamady Camara, where she plays the role of a young singer. In 2007, she played the role of Karaba in the musical Kirikou and Karaba, taken from the cartoon Kirikou and the witch by Michel Ocelot. At the same time, she is working on the disc of the musical. Cheick Tidiane Seck then offers him to record on his own Sabaly album. She has the opportunity to sing with Herbie Hancock (The Imagine project, Grammy Award in 20114) or Hank Jones. At the same time, she recorded on various discs. She is committed against excision in her region of origin in Mali. In 2012, she managed the production of a music video against the occupation of the north of the country by jihadists, which led her to play in Timbuktu, a multi-Caesarized film in 2015. In 2017, Fatoumata Diawara contributed to Matthieu Chedid's Malian project "Lamomali". In 2018, she released her second solo album Fenfo, produced by Matthieu Chedid. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett invite the Malian singer on a new excerpt from their collaborative series Song Machine in 2020 and feature her in the music video and song Sorry by the group Gorillaz. In 2022, she plays in an opera by Damon Albarn and Abderrahmane Sissako, entitled Le Vol de Boli and dedicated to the theft of a Malian animist fetish by a French ethnologist and art critic, Michel Leiris, for the Musée de l'Homme . In one of his texts, The Phantom Africa, Michel Leiris expresses his shame at having stolen this fetish. But it remained in France and is now on display at the Musée du Quai Branly.

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