约埃尔·里士满·马蒂厄·阿卡福，Born in Bouaké, Republic of Côte d'Ivoire in 1986. He completed a master's degree at the Institut Supérieur de l'Image et du Son (ISIS) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Afterwards, he studied at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts et de l'Action Culturelle (INSAAC) in Abidjan. Traverser is Akafou's first feature film.