Elyorissa Makanga is credited as a French actress on major film databases. The general public discovers her on May 2, 2024, the date of her first appearance in the daily series Ici Tout Commence on TF1, where she plays the character Thelma Ortega. Before this television exposure, her journey was built in less visible circles, between Parisian acting workshops and independent short films.
Elyorissa Makanga between Franco-Gabonese identity and French fictions
Several publications present Elyorissa Makanga as Franco-Gabonese, while her AlloCiné profile simply lists her as a French actress, without mentioning dual nationality. The available data does not allow for a definitive conclusion on the legal or administrative aspect of this identity. However, specialized articles explore how this claimed dual culture informs her approach to acting.
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The website On ne m’avait pas dit que dedicated an article to her cultural influences, describing how this identity presented as Franco-Gabonese fuels a reflection on diversity and representation on screen. This angle goes beyond the simple biographical narrative found on other platforms. To delve deeper into the story of Elyorissa Makanga on Jeune Bretagne, a detailed portrait traces her roots and journey.
The question of representation in French daily fictions goes beyond the individual case. An actress who brings a multicultural identity to the screen contributes, in fact, to an evolution of the French audiovisual landscape. Field feedback varies on this point: some see it as a structural turning point, while others view it as still a sporadic phenomenon in the casting of flow series.
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Training at Cours Florent and private theater workshops in Paris
The title of the AlloCiné article mentions Cours Florent as Elyorissa’s training place. This information has been widely reported. More recent sources nuance this journey: her training is not limited to Cours Florent. She has attended private theater workshops and schools in Paris, complemented by intensive on-camera training.
This type of trajectory does not go through the National Conservatory or La Fémis, the two most well-known institutional pathways in French cinema. The choice to diversify formats (group classes, short workshops, work in front of the camera) shapes a profile of an actress trained more by practice than by a linear academic curriculum.
Here’s what we know about her training journey:
- Attendance at Cours Florent, a private drama school in Paris, often cited in portraits dedicated to her
- Private Parisian theater workshops, not precisely identified in public sources
- Intensive on-camera workshops, focused on acting in front of the lens rather than on stage
- Participation in independent short films before her television role
This diversity of learning environments partly explains the versatility of performance that the series highlights through the character of Thelma Ortega.
Thelma Ortega in Ici Tout Commence: a role of composition on TF1
The character of Thelma arrives in the series with a personality described as “strong-willed” and an eccentricity that stands out from the rest of the cast. Arriving in a convertible car while she was expected at the train station, the scene of her first appearance immediately establishes a character out of sync. Thelma is connected to the character of Solal, as she is presented as the daughter of a friend of her father.
The following plots are not linear. In spring 2025, a twist reveals that Thelma herself sold her own clothes while her peers were investigating a theft targeting her. This narrative construction (a character with depth, lies gradually uncovered) offers the actress a broader playground than just a background role.
Elyorissa Makanga embodies a character whose layers are revealed over time, which implies a different interpretation work than that of a one-off appearance. TV program and casting sites primarily list her through this role, without mentioning any other significant appearances to date.
Short films and career in cinema: what sources allow us to say
Before Ici Tout Commence, Elyorissa Makanga participated in independent short films. The details remain scarce: no short film titles are cited in the public sources consulted. This lack of a detailed filmography is common among young actresses whose first visible role is television-based.
Databases like AlloCiné or TV-Programme currently only reference her character Thelma. This observation does not mean that other projects do not exist, but simply that the reference platforms have not yet indexed other credits.
On social media, the actress extends her acting work with a regular presence, although there are no quantified elements regarding the size of her community or her engagement rate. This channel remains a vector of visibility for young actresses building their careers alongside a daily series.
Elyorissa Makanga’s journey: the persistent gray areas
Several questions remain open. The Franco-Gabonese dimension of her identity is mentioned in in-depth articles but absent from her official AlloCiné profile. Her filmography outside of Ici Tout Commence remains elusive on public databases. No long interview seems available in the mainstream press, which limits the possibility of cross-referencing biographical information.
This relative ambiguity is common for an actress at the beginning of her career, spotted by a flow series before having the time to build a corpus of diverse roles. The continuation of her trajectory will determine whether the role of Thelma Ortega serves as a springboard to cinema or remains confined to the daily soap. Current data does not allow for a conclusion in either direction.