Africa’s biggest film festival started in Burkina Faso on Saturday with the Sahel nation’s long-running terrorist insurgency looming large over the opening night.
A total of 170 entries have been selected for the Pan-African Film and TV Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in the capital, including 15 fiction feature films in contention for the Yennenga Golden Stallion award and a prize of about US$30,000.
The president of FESPACO’s organizing committee, Fidele Aymar Tamini, said the festival’s 28th edition would embrace the theme of “African cinemas and peace cultures” in the context of the crisis.
Photo: AFP
The prime minister of neighboring Mali, the festival’s guest country of honor, which is also grappling with a bloody insurgency, said the culture had an “avant-garde role to play in the peace process.”
Mali and Burkina Faso are “brother countries” facing the “terrorist hydra” and “our fight for peace and sovereignty remains the priority,” Choguel Kokalla Maiga said to rapturous applause.
About 60 dancers simulated fighting to the sound of beating drums on an immense stage in a performance called “20 million VDP,” referring to the Homeland Defense Volunteers, the civilian force that supports the Burkinabe army.
The ceremony’s organizer said the choreography was designed to showcase the “bravery” young Burkinabe face with the crisis, which spilled over from Mali in 2015.
About 12 VDP members were killed in an attack in the north earlier this week, which followed the deaths of at least 70 soldiers in the same region in two separate assaults blamed on terrorists.
The violence in Burkina Faso has killed more than 10,000 people and forced about 2 million to flee their homes.
Burkinabe Minister of Communications, Culture, the Arts and Tourism Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo said that Mali and Burkina Faso, both ruled by military juntas that seized power in coups, were traveling on the same road in integration and cooperation projects.
Burkinabe Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem de Tambela, also attending the ceremony, recently suggested a federation between the West African neighbors.
The festival is due to run until Saturday.
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