Samantha Biffot (born 1985) is a Gabonese-French screenwriter, film producer and film director.

Biography

Biffot was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1985. She spent her childhood between Gabon, South Korea and France, and her multicultural upbringing influenced her later filmmaking. After receiving her baccalaureate, she studied at the

École Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle The École supérieure de réalisation audiovisuelle is a French private film school (Paris, Nice, Rennes) which specialises in the training of cinema, television, photography, sound engineering and digital art through the DESRA (''Diplôme d'étu ...

in Paris where she obtained a degree in cinema in 2007. Upon graduation, Biffot completed several television and film internships in France. Biffot returned to Gabon in 2010 where she established the production company "Princesse M Production" with Pierre-Adrien Ceccaldi. In 2011, she organized workshops in screenplay, production, image and editing as part of the International Festival of School Courts in

Libreville Libreville (; ) is the capital and largest city of Gabon, located on the Gabon Estuary. Libreville occupies of the northwestern province of Estuaire Province, Estuaire. Libreville is also a port on the Gabon Estuary, near the Gulf of Guinea. A ...

. In 2013, her TV series ''L'Œil de la cité'' (The Eye of the city) received the prize for the best African series at the

Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (, or FESPACO) is a film festival in Burkina Faso, held biennially in Ouagadougou, where the organization is based. It accepts for competition only films by African filmmakers and chief ...

. The series examined ritual crimes and environmental and social problems, with each episode having a moral at the end. She said she was influenced by the American series ''

Tales from the Crypt Tales from the Crypt may refer to: * ''Tales from the Crypt'' (album), by American rapper C-Bo * ''Tales from the Crypt'' (comics), published by EC Comics during the 1950s ** ''Tales from the Crypt'' (film), a 1972 Amicus film starring Ralph Ric ...

'', and her series was produced by the Institut Gabonais de l'Image et du Son. In 2016, Biffot released the documentary '' The African Who Wanted to Fly'', depicting the life of Gabonese kung fu master Luc Bendza. The film received the Special Jury Prize at the Festival Escales Socumentaires de Libreville as well as being named Best Documentary Film at the 2017 Burundi International Film and Audiovisual Festival. ''The African Who Wanted to Fly'' was also screened at the Internationales Dokumentarfilmfestival München and the African Film Festival in New York. Also in 2016, Biffot co-wrote and produced the African version of the TV series '' Parents mode d’emploi''. In 2017, she directed the popular series ''Taxi Sagat'', in which comedian Sagat plays a taxi driver and puts the riders in humorous situations, such as calling his girlfriend. Biffot collaborated with Oliver Messa on the 2019 TV series ''Sakho & Mangane'', about two policemen who solve cases involving the paranormal. It was filmed in

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The Departments of Senegal, department of Dakar has a population of 1,278,469, and the population of the Dakar metropolitan area was at 4.0 mill ...

and took three years to create. In November 2019, she led a workshop for Samba children on behalf of the NGO Samba Labs, as she considered the youth in Gabon were not given enough platforms to express themselves.

Filmography

* 2013: ''L'Œil de la cité'' (TV series) * 2016: '' The African Who Wanted to Fly'' (documentary) * 2016-2020: '' Parents mode d’emploi Afrique'' (TV series) * 2017: ''Taxi Sagat'' (TV series) * 2018: ''Kongossa telecom'' (TV series) * 2019: ''Sakho & Mangane'' (TV series)

References

External links

Samantha Biffot
at the

Internet Movie Database IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biffot, Samantha 1985 births Living people Gabonese film directors Gabonese women writers Film people from Paris 21st-century Gabonese people 21st-century Gabonese women