Maïmouna Doucouré


Maïmouna Doucouré is a French-Senegalese screenwriter and filmmaker of Senegalese descent. She made her feature film directorial debut with Cuties which received positive reviews and accolades at several international film festivals.

Career

She was born and raised in Paris to parents of Senegalese origin and pursued her higher studies in the field of biology from the University of Paris. She created her first self made short film Hide-and-seek in 2013 and released it in the same year. In 2015, she produced her second short film in her career Maman with the assistance of studio Bien ou Bien Productions and producer Zangro. The film was based on Maïmouna Doucouré's life inspired by her own personal experiences with polygamy as a young child. The short film was critically acclaimed for its screenplay and was premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, 2016 Sundance Film Festival and also jointly won the César Award for Best Short Film at the 42nd César Awards in 2017 along with Towards Tenderness directed by Alice Diop.
She penned the script for her debut feature film Cuties in early 2017 taking her life experience as a refugee girl into account. The script eventually won the Sundance's Global Filmmaking Award in 2017. The film is based on a traditional Senegalese Muslim girl who is caught and torn between two contrasting fortunes, traditional values and internet culture while also speaks about hyper sexualization of pre-adolescent girls. It was premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition sector of 2020 Sundance Film Festival on 23 January 2020 and won the Directing Jury Award praising the script of the film.