Kadiatou Konaté

Kadiatou Konaté is a Malian film director and screenwriter. Her most notable work is L'Enfant terrible, an animated short based on African myths. She has also produced several documentaries, often focusing on the issues of women and children in Mali.

Personal history Konaté was born in Bamako, Mali. Her family, the Konates, were royalty that had once belonged to the Gbara of Old Mali.

She was educated at Cheikh Anta Diop University.

In 2023, an impressive meeting chaired by the former First Lady of South Africa and Mozambique Graça Machel was held at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town. Four of that year's BBC 100 women, Michelle Obama, Melinda French Gates, Ulanda Mtamba and Amal Clooney took part. They were joined by Kadiatou Konaté, Tanzanian Rebeca Gyumi, Liberian Lakshmi Moore, Malawian Memory Banda, representatives of the Women Lawyers Association of Malawi and Faith Mwangi-Powell of Girls Not Brides. They discussed the problem of girls' education and child marriage.

Film career After leaving university, Konaté worked as a member of the crew on Souleymane Cissé's 1985 classic film Yeelen. Konaté followed this with a second documentary, also shot on video, Circulation Routiere (Traffic), co-directed with Kabide Djedje. It follows a benevolent spirit, a child which is born with teeth and the ability to talk and walk, who finds its older brother and begins an unusual journey. The film showed the difficulties faced by the miners, working in crude conditions, but also the honesty and work ethic they displayed.

Filmography Writer La Geste de Ségou (1989)

Director Des Yeux Pour Pleurer (1992) - Documentary Circulation Routiere (1993) - Documentary L'Enfant terrible (1993) L'enfant et l'hygiène corporelle (1993) L'enfant et la circulation routière (1993) Femmes et Développement (1995) Un mineur en milieu carcéral (1998) Petit à petit (2001) Daman da (2008)