Abderrahmane Sissako was born in Mauritania, trained at the Moscow Cinema Institute and has worked in France. Africa has always been central to his films, although the question of exile has left a lasting impression on his work, as October, shot in Russia in 1993, so brilliantly illustrates. This medium-length feature garnered numerous prizes, including the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes International Film Festival. Since then, he has made Sabriya (part of “African Dreaming,” a series instigated by the television channel Arte) and Rostov Luanda (part of Dokumenta Kassel 97). His cinematic approach, combining fiction and documentary, politics and poetry, provides one of the most forceful and accurate viewpoints about the African continent in recent times. In 1998, he completed his feature film, Life on Earth. Heremakono was selected at the 2000 Cannes Festival in the "Un Certain Regard" section.