Director
Nelly Béhanzin
Originally from southern Benin, Nelly Béhanzin is a young filmmaker born on December 21, 1996 in Cotonou. Driven by a passion for images and storytelling, she first trained as a journalist, then obtained a Master I in film and TV directing at ISMA (Institut Supérieur des Métiers de l'Audiovisuel). In 2023, she won the Best Francophone Film Award at the Mobile Film Festival with Le Rêve d'une presqu'île, a short, poetic one-minute film. But it was with her documentary Corps de femme that Nelly made a lasting impression. This film won her the Idriss Diabaté Prize for Best Documentary at Clap Ivoire (Côte d'Ivoire), as well as two other awards: at the Festival Émergence in Togo, and at the Festival du Film de Femme in Cotonou. In March 2024, she walked the carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, embodying this new generation of Beninese filmmakers who are shining internationally. Her creativity and rigor opened the doors to many prestigious residencies: Ouaga Film Lab 2024, FIDADOC 2025, Koudougou Docs (2020), and Ciné Guimbi (2022). In 2021, she was spotted by Durban Talents, and her short film project La Lanterne won Best Pitch at the Salon du Cinéma Féminin in Côte d'Ivoire. The following year, she proudly represented Benin at the UNESCO regional workshop in Guinea, dedicated to African creative and cinematographic industries. Committed and still learning, she joined the Le Futur est à Nous team as a scriptwriter, and also signed an intense short fiction, Séquelles, selected and awarded at Ciné 229 in 2023. Today, Nelly Béhanzin works as an assistant director on numerous local productions, including the comedy mini-series Six en One broadcast on the A+ channel, as well as various programs for national television. Through her images and stories, Nelly questions heritage, intimacy and the place of women in our societies. Her singular, vibrant voice continues to inspire a whole generation.
La Lanterne (Benin) - CM International Competition
In a remote village in southern Benin, 12-year-old Adjokê grows up between the bloody cough of a dying father, the resigned silence of an exhausted mother and the innocence of a carefree little sister. In this darkness, only the flickering light of an old lantern inherited from her grandmother Iya Zinmè illuminates her nights and nourishes her dreams. It embodies memory, dignity and hope. But when illness precipitates despair, her mother, Haliman, gives in to a deceptive promise: a benevolent family will take care of Adjokê. What she discovers behind the impeccable clay walls of Baba's concession is a hushed hell where young girls like her are reduced to silence, submission and pain. Her lantern becomes her only landmark, a fragile but tenacious witness to what she was and what she refuses to be.
become. In the darkness, the pain of what is happening in this hut, a voice emerges: that of her grandmother: "You are like this lantern. Nothing must extinguish you". So Adjokê resists. She stands up. She tries to escape, to get out of this hut. She runs to the light and does everything she can to keep her light on and save her comrades too.
