List of Famous people who born in 1961

Dani Kouyaté is a film director and griot from Burkina Faso, which the BBC describes as "Africa's most important film-making country".

Makoto Tezuka is a Japanese film and anime director, born in Tokyo. He fashions himself as a visualist and is involved in the creation of moving images beyond film and animation. He partially owns Tezuka Productions and helped in releasing the posthumous works of his father, Osamu Tezuka.

Aleksandr Vladimirovich Dvornikov is a Russian Ground Forces army general and a Hero of the Russian Federation.

Philippe Olivier is a French politician who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2019.

Geneviève Rioux is a Québécoise television host and actor in theatre, television and film.

Michael Meister is a German mathematician and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state Hesse since 1994. Since 2018, he has been serving as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Cui Jian is a Beijing-based Chinese singer-songwriter, trumpeter and guitarist. Affectionately called "Old Cui", he pioneered Chinese rock music. For this distinction Cui Jian is often labeled "The Father of Chinese Rock".

Nur Bekri is a former Chinese politician of Uyghur ethnicity, best known for his term as Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a vast region in Northwestern China, between 2008 and 2014. Between 2014 and 2018, he was Vice-Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission and Director of the National Energy Administration, with rank equivalent of a minister. Bekri was one of the highest ranked ethnic minority officials in the Chinese government.

Antônio Waldez Góes da Silva is a Brazilian politician. He serves as governor of Amapá, elected in 2015.

Li Cunxin is a Chinese-Australian former ballet dancer turned stockbroker. He is currently the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet in Brisbane, Australia.