Apolline Traoré
Apolline Traoré (born 1976) is a Burkinabé director, screenwriter, and producer. She is known for films that include Sous la clarté de la lune, Borders (Frontières ), Desrances, and Sira, winner of FESPACO's Étalon d'argent de Yennenga in 2023 and Burkina Faso's entry in the Best International Feature Film category for the 96th Academy Awards. She was born in 1976 in Ouagadougou. From the age of seven, she lived abroad in Africa and Europe given her father's career as a diplomat. After graduating from high school at age 17, she attended Emerson College's School of Arts in Boston in the United States. Traoré has received several honors for her contributions to arts and culture and the advancement of women. This includes the Medal for the Fight of Women in Cinema given by the Luxor African Film Festival (2022) and the Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite, des Arts, des Lettres et de la Communication of Burkina Faso (2019). In 2020, she was named as an Ambassador of the National Museum of Burkina Faso. (source: wikipedia)