The 21st Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco) took place last week in Burkina Faso. Many consider this important week long festival to be Africa's Oscars. The opening and closing ceremonies are very entertaining (and a little surreal). This year the festival opened with a procession of 10 feet tall puppets and dancing troupes dressed as American cowboys. The closing ceremony starred a group of French fire fighters (in town for a totally different engagement) doing gymnastics in tight red shorts and sweating profusely in the 104 degree heat.
While there is some glitz and glamor during the ceremonies, the biannual film festival is actually held in eleven dusty cinema halls throughout Ougadougou. Some directors complained to the BBC news team that their films were barely visible on the screen in even the best cinema in town. According to a BBC report: "Some people had not even received their accreditation by the end of the week, and directors often said they were unsure when their film was to be shown. " Radio France reported that "filmmakers [were] left stranded without plane tickets and movies playing in cinemas where the lights don’t actually go down".
Nevertheless, the movies that were on display were the real stars. Ethiopia born director Haile Gerima won the coveted Best Film prize for his movie Teza, and received the Golden Yennenga Stallion, Fespaco's equivalent of the Oscar statuette.
Teza is a historical drama set in the time of Ethiopia's dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. It took Haile Gerima 15 years to make this movie which is about a doctor returning to Ethiopia after studying abroad and seeing the enormous changes that have taken place in his home village while he was away. Unfortunately, the movie does not have a worldwide distribution deal, although it is possible to "save" it on Netflix and just hope for a quick release.
The other big winners at Fespaco 2009:
- Best Short Film - Sektou (They have Stopped Talking), by Khalid Benaissa (Algeria)
- Best Documentary - Nos Lieux Interdits (Our Forbidden Places) - Leila Kilani (Morocco)
- Best Sreenplay - L'Absence - Mama Keita (Guinea)
- Best Actor - Jerusalema - Rapu-lana Sei-phemo (South Africa)
- Best Actress - Les Jardins de Samira - Sana Mousiane (Morocco)
- Best Photography - Jerusalema - South Africa
- Best Editing - Jerusalema - South Africa
- Best Set - Adieu Mères - Morocco
- Best Music - Adieu Mères - Morocco
As with many film festivals, the movies that many Africans enjoy day to day are of a lighter fare than those screened during Fespaco, and most of them come from Nollywood, Nigeria's booming film industry. If you're interested, have a look at All African Movies.com. You can also check out my list of Top 10 Films About Africa.
More About Fespaco
Really good work about this website was done. Keep trying more – thanks!
Need a link to our website under “More About Fespaco” We have organized these packages for FESPACO since 1993. Tks
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