Fifteen films will compete for the grand prize of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco) in Burkina Faso, the biggest meeting of African cinema which will take place from February 25 to March 4, announced Friday 13 January the organizers.
This year’s selection includes 170 works in competition, divided into eleven categories, including feature fiction, short films, documentaries, TV series, school films and animated films.
Of the fifteen feature films in the running for the Etalon d’or de Yennenga, the supreme award, Cameroon and Tunisia are the most represented countries with two films each in competition.
The others are from Burkina, Senegal, Egypt, Nigeria, Mozambique, Angola, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco and Algeria. A film from the Dominican Republic was also selected. The jury that will award the Etalon d’or will be chaired by the Tunisian producer, Dora Bouchoucha.
“African Cinemas and Culture of Peace”
This year, Fespaco will celebrate the “African cinemas and culture of peace”, said the general delegate of the festival, Alex Moussa Sawadogo. This 28e edition is held in a country which has experienced two coups in 2022 and which has been destabilized by recurring attacks by jihadist groups since 2015.
Fespaco, the main cinema event in Africa, is held every two years in Ouagadougou. Each edition sees films of all formats compete for the Etalon d’or. Since 1969, when it was created, it has brought together in Ouagadougou tens of thousands of spectators and actors from the middle of the 7e art.
Here is the list of the fifteen films selected to run for Yennenga’s Etalon d’or: “The planting of the planters”, by Dingha Eystein Young (Cameroon); “My father, the devil”, by Ellie Foumb (Cameroon); “Ashkal”, by Youssef Chebbi (Tunisia); “Under the fig trees”, of Erige Sehiri (Tunisia); “Sira”, by Apolline Traoré (Burkina Faso); “Abu Saddam” by Nadine Khan (Egypt); “Bantu Mama”, of Ivan Herrera (Dominican Republic); “Mami Wata”, by CJ Fiery Obasi (Nigeria); Maputo Nakuzandza Ariadine Zampaulo (Mozambique); “Our lady of the Chinese Shop”, by Ery Claver (Angola); “Shimoni”, by Angela Wamai (Kenya); “Simin Zetwal/Look at the Stars”, by David Constantin (Mauritius); “The Blue Caftan/Le bleu du caftan”, by Maryam Touzani (Morocco); “The Last Queen/The Last Queen”, by Damien Ounouri (Algeria); “Xale, The Wounds of Childhood”, by Moussa Séné Absa (Senegal).