Marie-Clémence Andriamonta Paes

Born in 1959 to a Malagasy mother and a French father, Marie-Clémence Andriamonta Paes studied sociology and marketing at the Sorbonne before co-founding Laterit Productions in Paris in 1988, together with her husband César Paes. Her documentaries are built around music as subject and as narrative structure. She co-directed Angano...Angano... (1989) with César — a documentary capturing traditional Malagasy storytellers — which won awards at Cinéma du Réel, the Festival dei Popoli, and the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival. She co-produced Mahaleo (2005). In 2018 she directed her first solo feature, Fahavalo, Madagascar 1947, reconstructing the suppressed colonial uprising of 1947 through the testimonies of its last surviving witnesses. The film won the Documentaries of the World Award at the 42nd World Film Festival.