Born in Kinshasa, Alain Kassanda left the DRC for France at the age of 11. After studying communication, he has been staging cycles of movie showings in various Parisian theaters. He then became the programmer of an art house cinema for five years, in the suburbs of Paris, before moving to Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria, from 2015 to 2019. There he directed Trouble Sleep, a medium-length film centered on the road, depicted from the perspectives of a taxi driver and a tax collector. The film received the Golden Dove for best film at the Dok Leipzig festival in 2020 and the special mention of the jury at the Visions du réel festival. This was followed by Colette and Justin, a feature film intertwining his family history and the history of the decolonization of the Congo. The film was part of the international competition at IDFA in 2022. Coconut Head Generation is his third film.

Photo: Kenza Wadimoff