Kayije Kagame (born 1987) is a Rwandan–Swiss contemporary artist and actress.

Life and career

Kagame was born into a Rwandan family in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

in 1987. Her father, Faustin, is a prominent political journalist and advisor to President of Rwanda

Paul Kagame Paul Kagame (; born 23 October 1957) is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who is the 4th and current president of Rwanda since 2000. He previously served as a commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Uganda-based rebel ...

(no relation); her mother is a teacher of history and French. One of her siblings is filmmaker Shyaka Kagame. Kayije became interested in acting at age 19 when she ran into director in Rome and he offered her a role in a play. She studied theater at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève for a year, then in 2010 enrolled in the (ENSATT) in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

. In 2014, she attended a summer training program in New York hosted by theater director Robert Wilson, who cast her that year in his revival of '' Les Nègres'' at the Odéon in Paris. In art, Kagame has made short films,

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

installations, and other installations and performance pieces. In 2019, with other artists, Kagame staged ''So Long Lives This, and This Gives Life to Thee'', a piece that took up every part of the building of the in Geneva. The same year, Kagame and actress Grace Seri toured with ''Sans Grace/Avec Grace'', a two-part performance piece. In 2022, she and filmmaker Hugo Radi began touring ''Intérieur Vie/Intérieur Nuit'', a similar work that is half staged and half filmed. In Alice Diop's '' Saint Omer'' (2022), Kagame made her feature film debut playing Rama, a pregnant writer observing a woman (played by Guslagie Malanda) on trial for killing her own one-year-old daughter. Kagame's character has a real-life analogue in Diop, who attended the trial the film is based on.

A. O. Scott Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic. He has been chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' since 2004, a title he shares with Manohla Dargis. Early life Scott was born on July 10, 1966 in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' complimented Kagame's "seething, quiet performance", and ''

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...

'' praised her "effortless elegance". Kagame was chosen as one of the Révélations at the

48th César Awards The 48th César Awards ceremony, presented by the , took place on 24 February 2023 at the Olympia (Paris), Olympia in Paris, to honour the best French films of 2022. Actor Tahar Rahim presided over the ceremony, which was hosted by actors Emmanuel ...

, and

European Film Promotion European Film Promotion (EFP) is an international promotion organisation and a unique network of 38 national film promotion institutes who represent films and talent from their respective territories. Under the EFP flag, the members team up on ini ...

(EFP) named her one of 2023's Shooting Stars.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kagame, Kayije Living people Swiss people of Rwandan descent Artists from Geneva 21st-century Swiss women artists 21st-century Swiss actresses Swiss film actresses Swiss stage actresses 1987 births