RAW Material Company invites you to the Fridays @ RAW with Senegalese journalist Aboubacar Demba Cissokho exploring his most recent publication FESPACO - Beyond the Screens at Zone B, rue sans soleil, Villa 2A on Friday July 11 starting from 5 pm.
The event will highlight the release of the publication in which Aboubacar Demba Cissokho will be in conversation with Professor Ibrahima Wane.
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The Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) is now over fifty years old. This is something to celebrate and marvel at, and rightly so, because the consistent organization of this cultural event is almost a miracle in the Burkinabè context, where culture is not — except during the revolutionary period under Thomas Sankara — a political priority structured in a way that contributes to the country’s economic and social development.
Since its creation in 1969, this cultural event has offered an unparalleled platform for film production and professionals. The festival is deeply embedded in the social, political, and economic fabric of Burkina Faso. There seems to be an invisible force, supported by a strong, widespread awareness of what the festival represents for the image of Burkina Faso, and of the importance it holds for the continent and its diaspora. Every two years, it becomes a space to assess the state of film production across Africa.
Each edition is experienced by thousands of festival-goers and their Burkinabè hosts as a moment of reunion, celebration, and collective joy. As Nour-Eddine Saïl, former Director of the Moroccan Cinematographic Center, once remarked, FESPACO has become “essential to the existence of African cinema.” Born from a spirit of militant cinephilia in 1969, the year of its first edition, FESPACO has continued to take place regularly. The magic or miracle, if one can say so, lies in the attraction it holds for its visitors (professionals, critics, journalists, cinephiles…), some of whom have attended faithfully for over forty years. It persists, against all odds.
The content of this book spans from the first edition the author covered in 2003 to the 27th edition, held in February–March 2023. Aboubacar Demba Cissokhorevisits twenty years of coverage of the continent’s largest film event. His narrative, illustrated with photographs and enriched with historical facts, anecdotes, and reflections on FESPACO’s identity and militant vocation, is a true travel journal. It unfolds through film reviews, columns, interviews, portraits, and reports on topics that reflect and enrich FESPACO’s news, feeding its living memory.
The Senegalese filmmaker Sembène Ousmane (1923–2007), a guiding figure of the festival whom the Burkinabè affectionately called “The Elder of the Elders,” once said: “We created FESPACO. Now, FESPACO carries us.” [ Interview with Burkinabè journalist Yacouba Traoré in 2003, during the filming of Moolaadé, his final film. ] While it is true that the festival was born from the passion of cinephiles, it is equally remarkable to note that, fifty years after its inception, it now functions like a magnet, drawing all kinds of energies toward itself.