The Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé (born 1940), known in Africa for his documentary and feature films, was considered one of the major African filmmakers of the late 20th century. He was the first African to win a major award at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

Souleymane Cissé was born in Bamako, Mali, in 1940. He attended his first film at age seven, and thereafter his enthusiasm for film sometimes interfered with his school work, since by age ten he was attending theaters daily. He was educated in Bamako and in Dakar, Senegal, where his family lived for several years. After completing his schooling, Cissé was trained as a film projectionist in Moscow on a three-month scholarship in 1961. He returned to Moscow in 1963, again on scholarship, and studied filmmaking at the State Institute of Cinema until 1969. When Cissé returned to Mali he became the first director...