Over forty years old and with more than two hundred films of all genres in all formats, Malian cinema has occupied a central place in the cinematic landscape of Africa and the world since the 1970s. This impressive international success is to be credited to highly talented and persevering directors such as Souleymane Cissé, Cheick Oumar Sissoko, Adama Drabo, Abdoulaye Ascofaré, and Assane Kouyaté, who have won such prestigious awards as the coveted Yennenga Stallion, the Best First Feature Film as well as Jury prizes at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in Burkina Faso, and the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is also due to the genius of such gifted actors as Balla Ibrahima, Sory Koita, Hélène Maimouna Diarra, Habib Dembélé, and the late Balla Moussa Keïta.

While cinema was officially born in 1895, Malians were only able to represent themselves and their stories on the screen after their country's independence from France in 1960