FESPACO and its Future
I am at the 40th anniversary of FESPACO, a biannual event that bring together filmakers, films, intellectuals, everyone to a festival of celebration of creativity. This event is hosted in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso – an ancient West African city.
This is my first FESPACO. I am impressed, the crowd, quality of production of films, the intellectual discuss had around the event and creativity in Africa, etc. But I am also perturbed as I hear stories of woe around the table. “This might be the last FESPACO we will attend with our students,” Dr. Africanus Aveh said about the hassles of the current FESPACO where he has been attending for years with students from his University of Ghana, Legon. He sees no reasons why he must come here every two years and the quality of service continues to dwindle.
Prof. Kofi Anyidoho, a professor from the same university mentioned his off camera discussions with organisers last 2 years, highlighting that the government of the country has decided to pull out of sponsorship. This year, more than half way into the festival, even the conference program has not been created nor distributed – buttressing the point of Africanus Aveh that tickets had to be paid for this year to visit the movie theaters, in spite of conference registrations which in previous years covered all costs, including access to the movies. Such changes dissuade entry to the theaters for which students and future creative artists have had great access and benefits. “Theaters are empty,” he said.
Could this be another case of a failed African project after 40 years of success? Given that FESPACO is the one event that generates the largest amount of foreign income to Burkina Faso. Why would the government seek to pull out of a success story like this?
These are discussions had around the table organised by CODESRIA, a pan African Research Institution seeking answers to how African’s can tell their stories and perhaps change the negative images, rewrite wrong history that has been told about the African continent and its citizens.
Given that FESPACO is an African event, perhaps this is where the African Union may want to step in, not from a political perspective but from a more supportive role such as may be expected from a regional institution which should seek to ‘cover’ its own, as a mother hen covers her chicks from the hawk.
