06 Sep Ella Mutuyimana
After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, Rwanda, in 2011, Ella Mutuyimana pursued her twin passions of fashion and moviemaking with equal zeal. She joined the Fashion Design and Pattern Drafting program at ESMOD Beirut, Lebanon, where she was awarded Best Modelist at the conclusion of her first year. She also free-lances as photography and runway model. After working as Art Director on the short movie “Lyza” (2011), she wrote several screenplays and won the Goethe Institut Kigali “Gender-based Violence” Prize 2012 for “Strength in Fear”, a 30 minute short fiction about a child fighting off HIV and ostracism at school. She directed and produced the movie in the summer of 2012. In November 2012 her screenplay “Ma Vie en Rue” (“Motorbike Dreams”) was rewarded at the prestigious “Haraka!” short film competition organized by Canal France International (CFI) across Sub-Saharan Africa. Ella directed this film in the spring of 2013.
She also attended the 2014 Rwanda Screenwriting lab by Maisha and it educative and there where great Mentors.