Cecilia Zoppelletto

Cecilia Zoppelletto
Born	Cecilia Zoppelletto Padua, Italy
Occupations	Director, producer, screenwriter, lecturer
Years active	2014–present
Spouse	Kalaa Mpinga (m.2018)

Cecilia Zoppelletto is an Italian filmmaker. ^{[1] [2]} She is best known as the director of the critically acclaimed Congolese documentary La Belle At The Movies. ^[3]

Personal life

Zoppelletto was born in Padua, Italy. Since 1994, she has been based in London. ^[1] She holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Westminster. ^[4] Since 2020, she has been teaching Film Studies in the Photography Department of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Career

As part of her research, Zoppelletto wrote Decolonisation through ‘Development Films’: Constructing and Re-Constructing the Zairian Spirit on Film, exploring the archives of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the country's national film image in the post-independence era. ^{[1] [5]}

She has worked as a news producer for the Italian broadcasting company RAI and as a TV host and writer for the Italian network 'Antenna Tre Nordest'. In 2015, she directed the documentary La Belle At The Movies, which received critical acclaim and was screened in the United States, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. ^[6] In 2017, she directed the experimental short film Falling, ^[1] followed by the award-winning animated documentary short Ota Benga (2023) and the feature documentary AP Giannini: Bank to the Future (2023), co-written and co-directed with Valentina Signorelli, PhD.

Since 2024, Zoppelletto has serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of African Film Festival, Inc. (AFF), a non-profit cultural organization based in New York City that presents an annual film festival and year-round community programs.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Genre	Ref.
2016	La Belle at the Movies	Director, writer, producer	Documentary
2017	Falling	Director, producer	Documentary short
2023	Ota Benga	Director, producer	Documentary animation short
	AP Giannini: Bank to the Future	Director, writer, producer	Documentary
2025	Clichés	Director, writer, producer	Drama short

See also

• Cinema of Africa

References

1. "Cecilia Zoppelletto". African Filmny. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
2. "Cecilia Zoppelletto: DIRECTOR, SCREENWRITER, PRODUCER". MUBI. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
3. "Interviewing Cecilia Zoppelletto on 'La Belle at the Movies'". qmunicatemagazine. Archived from the original on 10 November 2021. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
4. "Cecilia Zoppelletto: Westminster School of Arts". westminster. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
5. "Cecilia Zoppelletto, Director, Featured in GIFT 2016". georgiatoday. Archived from the original on 22 March 2017. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
6. "La Belle at the Movies: Dir. Cecilia Zoppelletto –Documentary". congoinharlem. Retrieved 30 October 2020.

External links

• Cecilia Zoppelletto at IMDb