Hyrde Diama

Moussa Diakite Kémoko was born in 1940 in Mamou in Guinea. After studying at the National Drama Centre in Paris in the early 60s he went to Germany to study science degree in theater at the University of Frankfurt, and became assistant director in the Theatre of Frankfurt, and then assistant director at CCC Film in West Berlin until 1967. Moussa Diakite was also an assistant for Harald Reinl on Vengeance of Siegfried (Die Nibelungen) shot between 1965 and 1966. At the Frankfurt Schauspielhaus theater, he also became the assistant director for Heinrich Koch on the adaptation of the play by Eugene O’Neill Morning Becomes Electra (Trauer muß Elektra tragen).
Back in Guinea, Moussa Diakite Kémoko acted in a film by Mohamed Lamine, Sergent Bakary in which he played the lead role. He then moved behind the camera to direct two short films in 1969 for the educational campaign Journal of Agricultural and coffee N’zérékoré Centre.
Under Sekou Toure, some 50,000 Guineans were mprisoned in Camp Boiro and many lost their life. Most Guinean filmmakers were arrested and persecuted at that time. A real blow for artistic production and film of a generation. They stayed locked up a few months to ten years. Moussa Diakite ispent a whole year in the camp Boiro following his arrest in August 1970.
He returned to cinema in 1972 with a short documentary on the creation of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG). Moussa Diakite then turned to a longer documentary, Hird Dyama in 1972, about the Conakry Festival’s artistic and cultural importanace in Guinea. He followed in the same year with a portrait of former President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, entitled Homage to Osagiéfo Kwame Nkrumah, and a documentary on Fidel Castro’s visit to Guinea.

Moussa Diakite directed in 1975 the feature documentary The University In the Country, and in 1978 Hafia, triple champion of Africa and The Summit of Monrovia.
In 1982 he directed his first fiction feature film Naitou which proved a great success, including the Special Jury Mention at Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia and the Unesco Fespaco 1983 in Ouagadougou.
From 1986 to 1992, he directed the Office of Guinea publicity. Moussa Diakite Kémoko then took the head of the National Film Board of Guinea until 1999, when he resumed his activities as a director and independent producer and founded his company Nova Plus.

Moussa Diakite Kémoko has been producing corporate films and provides executive productions shooting in Guinea and has collaborated on films such as L’enfant Noir by Laurent Chevallier and IT (Temporary Registration) by Gahité Fofana in 2000. He is currently developing a new scenario for the feature film The Heir of Kant, a metaphor for the seizure of power by the military in Africa. —Africulture