Dieudo Hamadi was born in Kisangani (Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1984 and studied medicine from 2005-2008. However, he then attended several documentary workshops and went on to direct two shorts, Ladies In Waiting and Zero Tolerance, which screened at festivals in Europe and Canada’s Toronto International Film Festival. Ladies In Waiting received the "Pierre and Yolande Perrault" scholarship at Cinéma du Réel in 2009.
He then directed four feature-length documentaries that brought him worldwide attention: Atalaku (2013), National Diploma (2014), Mama Colonel (2017), and Kinshasa Makambo (2018). His most recent documentary, Downstream to Kinshasa (2021) was the first Congolese film to be an official selection in the history of the Cannes Film Festival.
In 2019, Dieudo Hamadi was awarded the McMillan-Stewart Fellowship in Distinguished Filmmaking by the Film Study Center of Harvard University.
Icarus Films is proud to distribute these films by Dieudo Hamadi. Discover more of our featured filmmakers.
“Downstream proves Hamadi a significant voice in humanist, activist filmmaking, as well as an emerging figure of note telling African stories from perspectives rooted in the communities from which they hail.” —Pat Mullen, POV Magazine
“Hamadi—who also shoots and edits his own footage—has trained his camera on some of the social and political ills that plague his country, while also revealing the depth of humanity and warmth beneath its troubled surface.” —Christopher Vourlias, Variety
