House of the Wind

Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu was born in Yaoundé in 1976 and has been making short films for almost a quarter of a century, among them Waramutsého! (2009), on two friends divided by the Rwandan genocide, which took the Bronze Foal at FESPACO. House of the Wind is his first feature. It premiered in the Orizzonti section at Venice in September 2026 and left with two prizes: the Orizzonti Special Jury Prize, and the Lion of the Future, the Luigi De Laurentiis award given to the best debut feature across the whole festival.

Josette is eighty and lives alone in Yaoundé, the city where the director grew up. Her six children have all gone to Europe and North America, and she hits on the idea of having them build houses back home, less as an investment than as a reason for them to return. The role is played by Josette Kwanya, the director's own mother, who had six children who all left Cameroon. She finished the film and died in 2024, before it screened. Eva Sehet photographs Yaoundé in warm, patient daylight, and Blick Bassy provides the score.

The production is African-led, made by Kouemo Yanghu's own Cameroonian company Horizons d'Afrique with co-producers in France, Belgium and Benin, and developed through the Final Cut in Venice workshop in 2025. It went on to the BFI London Film Festival, where all three screenings sold out. Celluloid Dreams handles world sales.