Portal:African cinema/Selected birthdays/27

Michaela Coel (born 1 October 1987) is a British-Ghanaian actress, filmmaker and poet. She is best known for creating and starring in the sitcom Chewing Gum (2015–2017) and the comedy-drama series I May Destroy You (2020). For both series, she won BAFTA awards for Best Actress. She starred in the series Black Earth Rising (2018) in which she plays a Rwandan-born British legal investigator seeking truth and justice surrounding the Rwandan genocide. Her next TV series to start filming in 2025, will see Coel write, star in and executive produce First Day On Earth, a TV series about a British-Ghanaian novelist reconnecting with her father and her country of heritage.

Doreen Mirembe (born 4 October 1987), is a Ugandan actress, filmmaker, and producer. She is known for Damile, a popular TV series now in its second season. The series garnered Miremebe the 2024 Uganda Film Festival Best Actress award in a Drama Series and Best Drama Series. She also wrote, produced and starred in Kafa Coh (2022) a political thriller starring Michael Wawuyo Sr. and Mariam Ndagire, and A Dog Story (2015) a short story about the relationship between a kidnapped woman and her abductor. The film was critically well-received and won both Mirembe and Wawuyo awards for Best Actress and Best Actor at the Pearl International Film Festival.

Merzak Allouache (born 6 October 1940) is an Algerian film director and screenwriter and considered one of his country's most influential filmmakers. He first gained international acclaim with Omar Gatlato (1976), a seminal film that set a new a vocabulary for post-indepence Algerian filmmaking. Other notable films include Normal! (2011) winner of Best Film at the 2011 Doha Tribeca Film Festival; The Repentant (2012) about a former djihadist struggling to atone for his crime; and Salut cousin! (1996) which was Algeria's submission to the 69th Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.

Marc Zinga (born 21 October 1984) is an award-winning Congolese-Belgian actor, singer and filmmaker. He first achieved wide acclaim in May Allah Bless France! (2014)^, a biographical film about and directed by hip hop musician Abd al Malik, and for which he was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actor. Other notable roles followed in the sports dramedy Scouting for Zebras; The Mercy of the Jungle (Best Actor winner at FESPACO 2019) and Omen, a 2023 film directed by Belgian-Congolese rapper Baloji in his feature film debut. Omen garnered Zinga his 4th Magritte nomination.

Katoucha Niane (23 October 1960 – 2 February 2008) was a Guinean model, activist and author. Nicknamed "The Peul Princess" (in reference to her ethnic Fula background), she was known as the muse of Yves Saint Laurent during the 1980s. She starred in just one film, Ramata (2007) directed by Léandre-Alain Baker, in which she played the title role of a married Senegalese woman who, aged 50, falls in love with a much younger man.

Mutiganda wa Nkunda (born 18 October, 1989) is a Rwandan screenwriter, director and producer. After several years of scripting and directing popular Rwandan television series, he directed his first feature film, Nameless, in 2021, which won the prize for Best Screenplay at FESPACO that same year. In 2020 he produced A Taste of our Land directed by Yuhi Amuli which won that year's awards for Best First Feature Narrative at the PanAfrican Film Festival and Best First Feature Film by a Director at the Africa Movie Academy Awards.