"An original filmmaker of exquisite sensibility; one of the foremost filmmakers of creative nonfiction working right now." —The New Yorker

Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam grew up in a traditional family in Cameroon and decided to pursue a career in cinema at a young age. In 2000, she began studying film with the Italian non-governmental organization COE (Centro orientamento Educativo) in Yaoundé, where she learned cinematography, editing, and directing. She would go on to work on a number of films for the NGO.

In 2007, she left Cameroon for Brussels, where she enrolled at the Institut Supérieur des Arts (INSAS) to study film directing. After earning her diploma, she directed the award-winning short film YOU WILL BE MY ALLY.

Mbakam's first feature length documentary THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN documented her return to Cameroon seven years later with her young son, after having studied film directing and getting married. The New York Times commented: "Rosine Mbakam makes a remarkable debut; demonstrates a mastery of perspective, a rare ability to include the camera in community."

Her second feature-length documentary, CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE, released in 2018, captures the day-to-day lives and concerns of immigrant West African women in a local hair salon. It had its world premiere at DOK Leipzig and has screened as an official selection at dozens of festivals. IndieWire called the film "a must-see! Highly revealing, an atypical and timely portrait of the intersection between the immigrant experience and female identity.”

Mbakam followed up with DELPHINE'S PRAYERS in 2021, an intimate portrait of a Cameroonian woman. Also released in 2021, PRISM, co-directed with Eléonore Yameogo and An van. Dienderen, looked to answer the question of whether the technology of photography and motion pictures is inherently racist. PRISM premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2021.

After four award-winning documentaries, Mbakam turned her documentarian's eye to fiction filmmaking. Her debut fiction feature MAMBAR PIERRETTE had its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival in 2023, premiered theatrically at New York City's Anthology Film Archives, and is available on DVD. 

Four of Mbakam's critically acclaimed, award-winning feature documentaries were released by Icarus Films Home Video on a four-disc special edition box set, Prisms & Portraits: The Films of Rosine Mbakam. The collectable DVD set also includes her two early shorts, YOU WILL BE MY ALLY and DOORS OF THE PAST.