Born in 1990, Nelson Makengo lives and works in Kinshasa. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa in 2015 and was trained at LaFémis in Paris. Makengo is basically a self-taught photographer and filmmaker. He was one of the 10 Congolese artists selected to participate in 2017 at Atelier Picha and the Lubumbashi Biennale. Artist in residence at WIELS, one of Europe's leading contemporary art institutions, in 2018. He has directed 6 short documentaries over 4 years, which have been screened in many festivals. "Tabu" (2016) and "Théâtre Urbain" (2017) were among the official selections of several festivals such as the Short Film Clermont-Ferrand 2018; the Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival, the Sao Paulo International Short Film Festival, the Festival du film documentaire de Saint-Louis Festival, Senegal 2017. His last two short films recently have received the Sharjah Art Foundation Award, Videobrasil 2019 and Best short documentary Award IDFA, Amsterdam 2019. Between 2019 and 2021, he is working on his first feature documentary, which recently received the "Brouillon d'un rêve" grant (SCAM 2019) and was selected at the IDFA Academy 2019 and Berlinale Talents 2020.
