Meet Bandiougou Dione

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bandiougou Dione a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Bandiougou, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I believe that my resilience comes from the times of illness that I went through during my childhood and adolescence. In fact, I was a weak child and I got sick more often than my brothers and sisters. I remember that one time, during a serious illness, I asked my mother if I would get better. And my mother told me that I would get better, for sure, by the grace of God. And I did. After several months of difficult times, I got better.
So I believe that having gone through these difficult events in my life has made me a resilient man today.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m more than happy to relate my story. First, I was born and raised in Senegal, a west African country. I grew up in a medium class family. My dad was a jail guard and my mom a housewife. Even if we didn’t have fancy things in life, my parents raised us with love and were more focus to give us a good education and schooling. I was a good student since my earliest age at school. My love in Art came to me very earlier too. And I was very skillful.

I learned how to draw when I was six or seven and also started writing very short stories. I also fell in love with films and anime and I spent all my spare times watching them. Then, growing up, I realized that I wanted to become an actor. And because most of the time I watched Hollywood movies, I wanted to come to Hollywood to pursue my dream. Everyone known me for my love in acting.

However, my dream was a mission impossible because my family didn’t have the financial capabilities to get me a student visa in order to come to the United States. But I still kept my dream.

Then, when I graduated high school in 2009, I went to college and learned Business. But, in the mean time, I was pursuing my acting career and also kept writing stories. In 2013, I founded my comic book company named “Ban’Des.Ciné”. It was a small business and my goal was to produce my stories as comic books. But, because of lack of financial capabilities and producers, the project didn’t go through.

Later, I started working in an accounting firm but I still kept working in my Art (acting and writing). In 2014, I was cast in the lead role for a movie named “Panique à domicile” in Senegal. The movie was a big hit at that time. And, as I said, my dream was to come to Hollywood and I never forgot about that. I just needed to find a way to legally immigrate in the United States.

Then, I started applying for the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. The Diversity Immigrant Visa program, also known as the green card lottery, is a United States government lottery program for receiving an immigrant visa followed by a permanent resident card. And luckily, I won that lottery in 2016 after six years of consecutive attempts. That’s how I was able to legally immigrate in the US. I landed in JFK in December 28th, 2016.

I lived in New York because the person who welcomed me in the US, was living there. Even if my goal was to come to LA, I stayed in New York for two years. My first job was a dishwasher. I also drove taxicab for a bit before going back to restaurants and becoming a cook. My time in New York also helped me learning the language and the American culture.

Later on, I joined the US Military in 2018. I was in the Army and served for four years. I was stationed in Fort Carson, Colorado. I was deployed one time in Kuwait but just for three months. During my service, I kept writing my stories. I also was able to produce, for the first time, my comic book named “Kanku-Man” in Senegal. I worked with some senegalese artists in distance for the making of the comic book. The first volume came out in 2020 and the second volume in 2021. After the second volume, I stopped the project because of lack of revenues. I tried many times to sell the product here in the US but I had distribution issues.

When my contract ended in 2022, I decided to discharge from the Army. Then it was the time for me to move to Los Angeles. After so many years, I finally got here to work on my dreams. I’m currently working on my acting career and also going to acting school. Few months ago, I rewrote the story of my comic book “Kanku-Man” as a script. Now, the story is based in Los Angeles and the new name is “The Mystical Ones”.

This year, I participated in some writing contests in Hollywood with my script “The Mystical Ones”. I got a good feedback from one of them and an “Honorable Mention” from another one.

And very recently, I’ve launched a fiction podcast of “The Mystical Ones” which can be listened to on Spotify, on Amazon Music or Apple Podcast. I’ll be honored to have you all listen to it and follow it. Thank you so much for reading me! Thank you for the privilege of your time!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three most important qualities that I have kept with me since the beginning of my journey are: hard work, perseverance and confidence.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

They helped me trust myself in any given challenge.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Deidhra Fahey Photography

Vaish Navipatil photography

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