Yannick Kamanzi: Rwanda
Dancer and Comedian

Yannick Kamanzi, born in 1997, belongs to the post-genocide generation. His parents took refuge in the Congo in 1994, but he lost his grandmother, who was killed during the genocide against the Tutsi. This event nourishes his reflection on memory and heritage. Trained at the École Jacques Lecoq in Paris, he develops a physical and committed approach to the stage. In 2023, he created The Black Intore at Chaillot, the national theatre of dance. His show Generation 25 is touring in Africa, Europe and Asia, with a collaboration with the Juilliard School. He works on East African Bolero and develops Beyond the Wall, a musical comedy combining collective creation and social engagement.

Ines Tanović: Bosnia
Art Historian and Activist

Ines Tanović grew up in Mostar, Bosnia, with a Bosnian Muslim father and a Croatian Catholic mother. When war broke out in 1992, her father was taken by the Croats to a concentration camp. Her sister remains trapped in the siege of Sarajevo for three years. Ines was 9 years old when she was hit by a Bosniac shell, of which she still has about fifty pieces of metal in her body. She holds a master’s degree in art history and a master’s degree in human rights and democracy in South-East Europe. Through her involvement in multiple citizen and cultural projects, she fights against ethnic divisions, for a participatory democracy and for the renewal of culture in Bosnia. In 2020, she created Association Kompas 071, a place for refugees in Sarajevo and Bihac.

Amir Hassan: Gaza
Poet and Journalist

Amir Hassan grew up in the Al Shati camp near the beach in Gaza. At age 18, he heard about French in college and decided to learn it. Four years later, he writes prize-winning poems in French. At 20, he leaves the Gaza Strip for the first time. He has a scholarship and has assisted in teaching Arabic at Henry IV High School for 3 years. In recent years, he has been teaching and publishing poems. He has been in France for 10 years, living and working in Paris as a journalist for France 24. He returned to Gaza to see his family just before the attacks of 7 October 2023. He was stuck for a month before being able to return to France. His parents, younger sister and younger brother were evacuated and are housed in Clermont-Ferrand pending the outcome of their asylum application.

Oksana Leuta: Ukraine
Comedian, Teacher and Translator

Oksana Leuta grew up in Ukraine during the period of crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union. Her parents were teachers and she decided to study French in Ukraine, and then theatre in France. In 2014, demonstrations began and the people of Kyiv occupied Maidan Square. She joined the medical team and spent weeks helping with logistics and organizing the on-site makeshift hospitals. In recent years, she was a teacher, actress and night manager at a secret techno club in Kyiv that organizes queer parties. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the war, she has been a translator for international journalists with whom she comes close to the front line to tell the world about the war. She continues to participate in theatrical projects in Ukraine and abroad.