The 27th Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco) is underway in Burkina Faso’s capital.
In the Ouaga 2000 area, a crowd of over 10,000 people surrounded the Palais des Sports complex to witness the opening of Africa’s largest film festival, which runs from 16 to 23 October.
The event was initially scheduled to occur in February, but it was delayed owing to the Covid-19 epidemic.
Fespaco is a well-known film and arts event that takes place in Africa. The first edition of the International Fespaco was held in 1969. Since then, it has grown to be an internationally recognized festival that attracts fans worldwide to celebrate films largely made by Africans.
The military was strategically positioned across Ouagadougou to guarantee the safety of guests.
Burkina Faso has been fighting an Islamist insurgency in the north and eastern regions since 2015.
“It’s not the first time that Fespaco has had difficulties with security… So, as before, we’ll use the same approach, but this time we’ll also consider sanitary issues,” Alex Moussa Sawadogo, Fespaco’s new delegate-general, explained.
“We are still standing in the face of an unprecedented security crisis,” stressed Burkinabé Culture Minister Elise Foniyama Ilboudo Thiombiano.
Burkino Faso’s President, foreign minister, and international ambassadors were also present at the site.
Out of the 1,132 films submitted across six categories, 239 have been chosen out of 50 nations.
It’s a thrilling contest to find the best feature-length film. There will be 17 movies vying for the top prize, the Golden Stallion of Yennenga, named after a Burkinabé mythological beast.
The directors arrive from Egypt, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda.
The big winner will be chosen by an international jury that includes Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako, who won France’s top prize, the César Award for best film in 2015, with Timbuktu.
