Philbert Aimé Mbabazi

Philbert Aimé Mbabazi

Philbert Aimé Mbabazi is a Rwandan director, born in 1990, in Kigali. He discovered cinema as a child in small cinemas in his neighbourhood in Kigali, where Hong Kong stock actions films and action B movies were shown on VHS, translated into Kinyarwanda.

In 2011, he made his first short film, “Rugano Destiny FM”, which won the “Signis” for Best emerging director Award, at the Zanzibar International Film Festival (“ZIFF”). His second short film, “City Dropout”, wins the Best Short Film Award, at the Rwanda Film Festival, in 2014. His screenplays have won awards, including the best short film for “Gakwandi Shoe Store”, at the Zanzibar International Film Festival, in 2013, and “Nine Letters to the Father of the Nation” in the top five of the feature film scripts, at the Luxor Africa Film Festival, in 2014. He worked as assistant director on the shooting of Kivu Ruhorahoza’s new feature, “Things of the Aimless Wanderer”, which was presented in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, in 2015. He also worked as a fixer and translator in Rwanda, for film crews and foreign TV stations, such as “Al Jazeera”, “BBC”.

Since 2015, he is studying Bachelor in cinema, at the “Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design” in Geneva. His first school film, “The Liberators”, was presented in competition at “Visions du Réel”, in Nyon, in 2016. His second short film, “Versus”, was screened at several festivals, including Oberhausen, Tampere and Uppsala International Film Festivals.