The Most Famous
FILM DIRECTORS from Mali
This page contains a list of the greatest Malian Film Directors. The pantheon dataset contains 2,041 Film Directors, 1 of which were born in Mali. This makes Mali the birth place of the 78th most number of Film Directors behind Cuba, and Luxembourg.
Top 1
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Malian Film Directors of all time. This list of famous Malian Film Directors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Souleymane Cissé (1940 - 2025)
With an HPI of 55.77, Souleymane Cissé is the most famous Malian Film Director. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages on wikipedia.
Souleymane Cissé (21 April 1940 – 19 February 2025) was a Malian film director, regarded as one of the first generation of African filmmakers. He was called "Africa's greatest living filmmaker" while his film Yeelen has been called "conceivably the greatest African film ever made." He was the first director from sub-Saharan Africa to receive an award, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987, for “Yeelen”, he was awarded the Golden Coach in 2023.
People
Pantheon has 1 people classified as Malian film directors born between 1940 and 1940. Of these 1, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Malian film directors include Souleymane Cissé.
