This year’s edition of the Ismailia International Film festival for Documentaries and Shorts will honour Congolese director Mweze Ngangura.

Ngangura was born in Bukavu in 1950, and is known for his award-winning short documentary films that include Kin-Kiesse, and Pièces d’Identités (“Identity Pieces”), and Le Roi, La Vache et Le Bananier (“The King, the Cow and the Banana”).

Kin-Kiesse (1983) won prizes in Burkina Faso’s FESPACO festival and Tunisia’s CIRTEF festival.

Pièces d’Identités won seven international awards, including the Audience Award at the 8th Festival of African Cinema of Milan in 1998 and the Grand Prix at FESPACO in Ouagadougou in 1999.

Alongside his filmmaking career Ngangura was also a professor at three colleges in Kinshasa, the National Institute of Arts (INA), the Institute of Science and Information Technologies (ISTI), and the Studio-School of the Voice of Zaire (SEVOZA).

In the 1980s Ngangura founded two production companies, Sol’Oeil Films in Kinshasa and Film Sud in Brussels, to produce his own films and preserve his independence as an artist.

The Ismailia festival is headed by film critic Essam Zakaria, and is organised by the National Cinema Center.

It will take place from 10 to 16 April.