A frican Film Festivals and Transnational Flow s of Living Cultural H eritage  Edited by Sheila Petty African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage FRAMING FILM FESTIVALS Edited by  Sheila Petty Framing Film Festivals Series Editors Marijke de Valck, Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands Tamara L. Falicov, Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Media, Art, and Design, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, USA Every day, somewhere in the world a film festival takes place. Most people know about the festival in Cannes, the world’s leading film festival, and many will also be familiar with other high profile events, like Venice, the oldest festival; Sundance, America’s vibrant independent scene; and Toronto, a premier market place. In the past decade the study of film festivals has blossomed. A growing number of scholars recognize the significance of film festivals for understanding cinema’s production, distri- bution, reception and aesthetics, and their work has amounted to a prolific new field in the study of film culture. The Framing Film Festivals series presents the best of contemporary film festival research. Books in the series are academically rigorous, socially relevant, contain critical discourse on festivals, and are intellectually original. Framing Film Festivals offers a dedicated space for academic knowledge dissemination. Sheila Petty Editor African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage Editor Sheila Petty Department of Film University of Regina Regina, SK, Canada ISSN 2946-3734 ISSN 2946-3742 (electronic) Framing Film Festivals ISBN 978-3-031-88589-1 ISBN 978-3-031-88590-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2025. This book is an open access publication. 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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa- tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: @ Estrella Sendra This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland If disposing of this product, please recycle the paper. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the generous support of several people and organizations. Thanks are due to all the contributors for their interesting and inno- vative chapters, without which this book could never have come to fruition. I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to my friend and colleague Dr. Estrella Sendra for designing such an original and creative book cover. I am also very thankful to my research assistant, Fausto Llampallas Itur- riría, for photography assistance, and to Barb Flynn and Bob Gilongos at the University of Regina for ongoing research and project management advice. The research for this book was supported, in part, by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Devel- opment Grant #890-2020-0102 and, in part, by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund for the project, Decolonizing Film Festival Research in a Post-Pandemic World [NFRFR-2021-00161]. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development Grant #890-2020-0102 that allowed this book to be published open access. At Palgrave Macmillan and Springer Nature, I would like to thank all the editors, managers, and staff for their meticulous work, as well as the anonymous readers of the manuscript. v vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Finally, I thank Vaughn Borden, who gives me, as always, uncondi- tional support. Praise for African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage “Sure to become a key reference for anyone working on, or in, African film festivals, this edited collection offers a refreshingly pluri-centric perspective on the ways African stories travel across many continents. Petty has brought together an inspiring array of academics and curators to offer much-needed insights into the mythologies, collaborations and communities that constitute today’s African film worlds.” —Dr. Rachel Johnson, University of Leeds, United Kingdom “This volume is an essential festival knowledge forum, centering culture and knowledge originating from the African continent. Through a diverse set of case studies on Africa-themed film festivals across Africa, the Amer- icas, and Europe, it provides rich, collaborative insights from researchers, curators, and communities. The book offers highly engaging Indigenous, postcolonial, and diasporic perspectives, emphasizing the social impact, cultural exchange, and meaningful collaboration of and through film festivals.” —Prof. Dr. Skadi Loist, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, Germany “This edited collection provides a nuanced overview of the role played by international film festivals in shaping our understanding of African cinemas across the globe. Petty brilliantly brings together a wide range vii viii PRAISE FOR AFRICAN FILM FESTIVALS AND … of scholars and critics to examine the communities and circuits through which African films circulate. A much-needed intervention in festival studies.” —Dr. Antoine Damiens, York University, Canada Contents 1 Introduction: African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage 1 Sheila Petty 2 On FESPACO Mythology 13 Olivier Barlet 3 Curating Africa in Contemporary Film Festivals in Senegal: An Analysis of the Constellation of Collaborations 35 Laura Feal and Estrella Sendra 4 Journeys of Discovery: The Case of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) 57 Lucy R. McNair and Habiba Boumlik 5 Virtualization of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) During and Post-COVID-19: The Scramble “To Remain the Same” 79 Soubeika Bahri 6 From Africa to London to the World: Film Africa’s Leading Role in the Circulation of African Cinemas 101 Estrella Sendra and Robin Steedman ix x CONTENTS 7 African Film Festivals: A Transnational Programming Intervention and Tales of the Accidental City as a Case Study 123 Giovana Nabarrete de Souza Cruz and Babatunde Onikoyi 8 “Act in Your Location, Think with the World”: Constructing Audience “Afterlives” at Three North American-Based African Film Festivals 141 Sheila Petty and Estrella Sendra Index 161 Notes on Contributors Soubeika Bahri holds a PhD in Linguistics and M.A. in Applied Linguis- tics. Her research examines language maintenance and revitalization of the Tunisian variety of Tamazight, both at the structural level and through the computer-mediated discourse. Her recent work has turned to diverse topics that include language and cinematic discourse in Amazigh film and language and gender inclusivity in writing Arabic varieties. Dr. Bahri is co-editor of the volume Digital Orality: Vernacular Writing in the Online Spaces. Currently, she serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Amazigh Studies and a co-organizer of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film. Olivier Barlet was born in Paris in 1952. He has translated a number of books on Africa and was literary agent specialized on Africa. He is a member of the Syndicat français de la critique de cinéma, and is Cinema Editorial Director for Africultures, after having been a long-time film correspondent for Africa International, Afrique-Asie and Continental. His books have been translated into English: African Cinemas, Decolo- nizing the Gaze (Zed Books, London, 1997), and Contemporary African Cinema (Michigan State University Press, 2016). He has written 1800 articles on African film for the Africultures and Afrimages websites. Habiba Boumlik is a professor at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, specializing in Arabic, French, and Middle Eastern cinema. She founded the New York Forum of Amazigh Film, promoting Amazigh/ xi xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Berber culture. Her notable publications include “Indigeneity and Iden- tity Transmission: Amazigh Cultural Expression through Film” (2023) and “Morocco’s Islamic Feminism” (2018). Dr. Boumlik’s research focuses on cultural identity, social change, and historical memory, contributing significantly to the understanding of North African societies and their diaspora. Laura Feal is a PhD candidate at Université Gaston Berger (Saint- Louis) whose work focuses on memories of cinemagoing in the twentieth century in Saint-Louis. She is a journalist, independent researcher, and project manager with expertise in international cooperation, working in various African countries such as Algeria, Morocco, Namibia, Mozam- bique, and Mauritania. Based in Senegal since 2012, she is involved in several community-based cultural initiatives, coordinating the activities of the local association Hahatay. Since 2018, she has been a regular contrib- utor to the Spanish newspaper EL PAÍSA and other media. She is a member of the artistic committee of the international documentary film festival, StLouis’DOCS. Lucy R. McNair is a translator and professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, The City University of New York, where she teaches writing and literature, co-leads a faculty seminar on Language Across the Curriculum, and co-curates the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (www.nyfaf.com). Translator of Mouloud Feraoun’s Algerian-Amazigh classic, The Poor Man’s Son, her scholarly articles have appeared in Jadaliyya, Language, Culture and Curriculum, and Journal of North African Studies. With Yahya Laayouni, she is co-editor of the collection, Amazigh Cinema: An Introduction to North African Indigenous Film (University of Regina Press, 2025). Babatunde Onikoyi is a PhD candidate and sessional lecturer in the Department of Film, University of Regina, Canada. He is also film reviews editor for African Studies Review. His essays on African cinemas have appeared in prestigious journals and book volumes, including Black Camera, Journal of African Literature Association, African Studies Review, Africa Studies Quarterly, and Journal of African Cinemas, among others. His research interests include Transnational Screen Media, Film Festivals, Cultural and Diaspora Studies, and Global Cinemas. He is the co-editor of The Cinema of Tunde Kelani: Aesthetics, Theatricalities and Visual Performance (Cambridge Scholars, 2021). https://www.nyfaf.com NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii Sheila Petty is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor Emerita of Film Studies at the University of Regina, Canada. She held the SaskPower Research Chair in Cultural Heritage at the University of Regina from 2022 to 2024. She has written extensively on manifestations of cultural heritage in sub-Saharan African, North African, and Amazigh cinemas and has curated exhibitions for art galleries across Canada. Her latest project, funded through the Government of Canada’s New Fron- tiers in Research Fund, investigates methodologies for decolonizing film festival research in a post-pandemic world. Her most recent book is Habiba Djahnine: Memory Bearer (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). Estrella Sendra is Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Indus- tries Education (Festivals and Events) at King’s College London. Her main research interests are film and creative industries in Senegal, with a particular focus on festivals. She was the co-principal investigator of “Decolonizing Film Festival Research in a Post-Pandemic World,” funded by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRFR-2021-00161, 2022–24). She is an advisory board member of the ERC-funded research project “African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies” (grant agreement No. 819236, 2019–24), led by Prof. Lindiwe Dovey. In 2024, she was awarded the King’s Research Impact Awards (International Collaboration) for her collaborations with festivals and film programs curating African cinemas. Giovana Nabarrete de Souza Cruz holds a Bachelor’s in Film Produc- tion degree through the University of Regina. She has been involved in Dr. Petty’s film festival research since 2022, for which she devised a programming intervention and wrote a festival review. Her research inter- ests are transnational cinema, exoticism in cinematic representations, and the crossing of philosophical theories and filmmaking. Beyond working as a filmmaker and academic, Giovana is also an analogue film photog- rapher and the manager of in-competition programming for the Regina International Film Festival and Awards. Robin Steedman is Lecturer in creative industries at the University of Glasgow. She is interested in African creative and cultural industries and in questions of diversity and inequality in media production, distribu- tion, and viewership. Her work on African creative industries has been published in journals such as Poetics, Information, Communication and Society, Cultural Trends, Environment and Planning A, Geoforum, and xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS International Journal of Cultural Studies. Her first book is Creative Hustling: Women Making and Distributing Films from Nairobi (MIT Press). Acronyms and Abbreviations ACM Amazigh Cultural Movement (CMA Congrès Mondial Amazigh) ALA Congreso Latinoamericano de Antropología AM-FM African Movie Festival in Manitoba AMREC Association Marocaine de Recherches et d’Echanges Culturels ASCC Association Sénégalaise de la Critique Cinématographique (Senegalese Association of Film Critics) BFI British Film Institute CCM Moroccan Cinematographic Center (CCM) CIFF Cairo International Film Festival CIFF Cleveland International Film Festival Cinefemfest Festival africain du film et de la recherche féministes CUNY City University of New York DIFF Durban International Film Festival DocAnt National Showcase of Anthropological and Social Documentary Film and Video FACC Fédération africaine de la critique cinématographique/African Federation of Film Critics FCNFA Festival Culturel National du Film Amazigh FEPACI Fédération Panafricaine des Cinéastes FESPACO Festival panafricain du cinéma et de la télévision de Ouagadougou (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou) FFA Film Festival Alliance FFFA Festival Films Femmes Afrique FFM Festival Films Femmes Méditerranée in Marseille xv xvi ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS FIAPF Fédération internationale des associations de producteurs de films/International Federation of Film Producers Associations FIFF Festival International de Films de Femmes (Cotonou, Benin) FIFFS Festival International du Film de Femmes de Salé (Morocco) FINIFA Issni N’Ourgh (International Festival of Amazigh Film in Agadir) FIPRESCI Fédération internationale de la presse cinématographique/ International Federation of Film Critics FOPICA Funds for the Promotion of the Cinematographic and Audiovisual Industry IACHR Inter-American Commission on Human Rights INAFEC Institut Africain d’Education Cinématographique INAPL National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought JCC Journées cinématographiques de Carthage JCFA Journées cinématographiques de la femme africaine de l’image JIFA Les Journées Internationales du Film Amazigh LIFF Leeds International Film Festival LPAC LaGuardia Performing Arts Center LSSFF Living Skies Student Film Festival MOSTRA Mostra de Cinemas Africanos NYFAF New York Forum of Amazigh Film ONF/NFB Office national du film du Canada/National Film Board of Canada RAM Reunión de Antropología del Mercosur RAS Royal African Society RECIDAK Les Rencontres cinématographiques internationales de Dakar RED Red de Festivales y Muestras de Cine de Chile y los Pueblos Originarios (Network of Chilean and Indigenous Film Festivals REMAV Red Mexicana de Antropologia Visual RIFFA Regina International Film Festival and Awards SDLFF San Diego Latino Film Festival SIFF Seattle International Film Festival SOAS School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London StLouis’Docs Festival International du Film Documentaire de Saint-Louis SXSW South by Southwest UNDRIP United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples VUES Festival International de Cinéma Vues d’Afrique List of Figures Cover image “Drawing inspired by a pop-up screening at Ndiébène Gandiol, Senegal, during Festival StLouis’DOCS 2023” (Courtesy Estrella Sendra) Chapter 2 Fig. 1 FESPACO 2023 official poster (Courtesy FESPACO. CC BY-SA 4.0.) 14 Chapter 3 Fig. 1 Visualization of the constellation of entangled collaborations in the Festival Films Femmes Afrique (FFFA) in 2022 (Courtesy Laura Feal and Estrella Sendra 2021) 47 Fig. 2 Visualization of the constellation of entangled collaborations in the Festival StLouis’DOCS in 2022 and 2023 (Courtesy Laura Feal and Estrella Sendra 2021) 48 Chapter 4 Fig. 1 Poster for the 2017 3rd edition of New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) (Courtesy New York Forum of Amazigh Film) 64 xvii xviii LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 2 Poster for the 2019 5th edition of New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) (Courtesy New York Forum of Amazigh Film) 68 Fig. 3 Poster for the 2023 8th edition of New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) (Courtesy New York Forum of Amazigh Film) 70 Chapter 6 Fig. 1 Map showing the various locations Film Africa has been hosted over the years (Source Map elaborated by Estrella Sendra and Robin Steedman for the purpose of this chapter (2024). Courtesy Estrella Sendra and Robin Steedman). [The map can be accessed also via this link: https://maps. app.goo.gl/4UZBk1PsSW6si37W9] CC BY-SA 4 113 Fig. 2 Film Africa audiences gathering at the front entrance of Hackney Picturehouse in 2012 (Courtesy Estrella Sendra) 115 Chapter 7 Fig. 1 Poster for Tales of the Accidental City with insert photo of Maïmouna Jallow (Courtesy Maïmouna Jallow) 132 Chapter 8 Fig. 1 Poster for “Vues d’Afrique—40 Ans d’Affiches” exhibition at Maison du Conseil des Arts de Montréal during the Rallye-Expos 2024 (Courtesy Vues d’Afrique) 147 Fig. 2 2024 Poster for African Movie Festival in Manitoba (Courtesy African Movie Festival in Manitoba) 150 Fig. 3 IV Festival Artístico Audiovisual Afrodescendencias 2024 festival poster (Courtesy Claudia Lora) 154 Fig. 4 Pop-up screening of Diablos, El Quizá Nueva Generación (Claudia Lora, 2024, Mexico) at El Quizá, Guerrero on 7 June 2024 (Courtesy Rodrigo Martínez Vargas) 156 10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_6#Fig1 CHAPTER 1 Introduction: African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage Sheila Petty Abstract Through case studies of African film festivals around the world, this book explores festivals as spaces of living cultural heritage involving multiple audiences that engage with local and transnational levels of meaning. The chapters probe how flows of knowledge that arise from the African continent arrive at African-themed film festivals (both on and off the continent) and are transformed through new contexts of presentation and engagement in new locations. The chapters examine how histories and memory are contextualized and translated across geographies and historiographies. The chapters investigate potential methods of catalyzing a “transnational flow” from inception to end that involves attention to process rather than studying festivals as static cultural products with discrete and isolated categories of programming, presentation, documen- tation, and networking. The chapters in this book advance understanding S. Petty (B) Department of Film, University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada e-mail: Sheila.Petty@uregina.ca © The Author(s) 2025 S. Petty (ed.), African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_1 1 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_1&domain=pdf mailto:Sheila.Petty@uregina.ca https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_1 2 S. PETTY of culturally situated views of systems and heritage as a human and transglobal preoccupation that must cross borders. Keywords Africa · Film · Festival · Travel · Audience · Transnational · Cultural heritage The human right to tell one’s story in one’s own language (cultural sovereignty), as embodied in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), is a crucial focus of recent scholarly research. Furthermore, global mobility has led scholars to ponder the nature of traveling ideas and theories. Theorists of glob- alization such as the Martinican Édouard Glissant (2009) and the Moroccan Abdelkébir Khatibi (1983) have cautioned that local histo- ries are also the products of global interactions, including colonialism. Moroccan Amazigh writer and linguist Ahmed Boukouss reminds us that the Maghreb has always been a region of contact zones where diverse peoples, languages, and cultures from Punic, Greek, and Latin to Arabic, French, and Spanish have peacefully co-existed and even thrived through contact (2012, 69). Quite naturally, these transnational influences find their way into cultural production, regardless of the chosen form or mode. Cognizant of these current debates, this book aims to understand and communicate how cultural expressions travel, for example, from conti- nental Africa and arrive in North America and Europe, and how they are articulated from the diaspora by many filmmakers in films which circulate back to the “homeland” and out again to multiple points of view. Respect for living cultural heritage as a manifest expression that transcends nations is imperative in a time of growing globalization, traveling, and travel bans due to pandemics, and the concomitant use of digital media to share living cultural expression, such as in curated spaces like film festivals. Around the globe, film festivals offer platforms for understanding film cultures and their contexts of production, distribution and recep- tion. From the world’s first international film festival in Venice, Italy, in 1932, to more recently formed, identity-based local events, film festivals create spaces for dialogue and set the stage for audience engagement with moving image texts (Chan 2011). Beyond their exhibition and display function, festivals have often traditionally been considered catalysts for industry-oriented activity, such as financing, training, and networking. In 1 INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN FILM FESTIVALS … 3 the case of “Francophone Oceania,” it is these very factors, according to Michelle Royer, that have prompted the establishment of film festi- vals in “New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna” where Western media continue to dominate the audiovisual sector (2024, 66–67). As African nations gained independence during the 1960s, festivals provided a mechanism to bring together filmmakers from around the continent keen to build viable film industries and contribute to their new nations’ economic and cultural well-being. According to Lindiwe Dovey, “arts festivals with a strong film presence” took root “during decolo- nization,” and by the mid-1960s “regularly held film festivals” emerged, such as the Journées cinématographiques de Carthage founded in Tunisia in 1966 and the Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in Burkina Faso (Dovey 2015, 1). These festi- vals aligned with the precepts laid out in the Algiers Charter on African Cinema, adopted at the Second Congress of the FEPACI (Fédération Panafricain des Cinéastes) in Algiers, in January 1975. Among other things, the Charter focused on the necessity of training future gener- ations of filmmakers and capitalizing on Panafrican and transnational networking. It described cinema as a “stimulus to creativity,” whereby the outcomes of expression were meant to be myriad, fluid, reconfigured, and remediated into multiple journeys, taking African cultures into the future. This underscores the thinking of Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe, who has held that the “movement of worlds” as he describes it, creates histories that must be understood as “cultures of mobility” emerging in response to internal and external contacts (2002). Many film festivals today take place within “contemporary transna- tional context(s) of exchange and production” (Boumlik and McNair 2017). Such is the case of four North American film festivals whose mandates include providing a meeting place and space of celebration and dialogue between diverse local communities and African cultures in globalizing contexts. Festival International de Cinéma Vues d’Afrique is North America’s largest and longest-running African film festival. Estab- lished in Montreal in 1985 to introduce African and Creole cinema and culture to Quebec and Canada and to forge links with other African cinema festivals around the world (such as the Panafrican Film Festival of Ouagadougou and the Carthage Film Festival), the organizers have sought, over the years, to expand offerings for spectators beyond conven- tional categories of film production and exhibition. In 2015, Drs. Habiba 4 S. PETTY Boumlik and Lucy McNair established the first edition of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film with the goal of disseminating and encouraging Amazigh cinema and celebrating “the history, culture, and language of Amazigh peoples across North Africa and in the diaspora” (Boumlik and McNair 2017). The African Movie Festival in Manitoba (AM-FM) was founded in 2017 by Dr. Ben Akoh in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with the mandate to showcase the best of African Cinema and create a platform for Afro-Canadian dialogue. In Mexico, the Festival Artistico Audiovisual Afrodescendencias was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers, artists, activists, and communities to celebrate Afro-Mexican identity through a multidisciplinary and itinerant showcase of Afro-Mexican arts. These festivals, as well as others around the globe, that are discussed in this book, including Mostra de Cinemas Africanos in Brazil; Festival Films Femmes Afrique and StLouis’DOCS in Senegal; Leeds International Film Festival and Film Africa in the United Kingdom, all draw their knowledge foundation from within the Algiers Charter, embracing its pedagogical and creative directives, and creating spaces for cultural heritage to live, flourish, and evolve. The authors who have contributed to this book understand and consider festivals as spaces of living cultural heritage involving multiple audiences that engage with local and transnational levels of meaning. The chapters position Africa as point of origin, thus challenging perceptions of the continent as “defined by a state of crisis,” spurred on by failing economies and the ravages of war (Gikandi 630). The book disputes the view of Africa as “an object apart from the world,” a view which “perpetually underplays the embeddedness in multiple else- wheres of which the continent actually speaks” (Mbembe and Nuttall 348). Rather, the book answers Achille Mbembe’s call for the develop- ment of “an aesthetic of opening and encounter,” whereby identities are intrinsically global in scope because they have been shaped by a confluence of transnational forces (2002, 640). The chapters probe how flows of knowledge that arise from the African continent arrive at African-themed film festivals (both on and off the continent) and are realized/transformed through new contexts of presentation and engagement in new locations. We ask how histo- ries and memory are contextualized and translated across geographies and historiographies. The chapters investigate potential methods of catalyzing a “transnational flow” from inception to end that involves attention to process rather than studying festivals as static cultural products with 1 INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN FILM FESTIVALS … 5 discrete and isolated categories of programming, presentation, documen- tation, and networking. The chapters also seek to understand several interrelated questions: how does a festival interact with place/location in using the city/location as its exhibition venue? How does a festival create a “journey of discovery” in translating and contextualizing films for specific populations and audiences and creating virtual and on-site dialogues? In engaging with audiences in the moment of viewing a film, how do we arrive at festivals and move along their circuits? What are the ethnographic methods, such as “being there” versus digital ethnography (Facebook, etc.), which allow one to witness certain events live, enabling audiences to move along the circuit when one cannot move along live? What is “giving back” (results sharing), and how is all of this multidirec- tional? What are the layers that safeguarding and archiving entail? How do archives curate their own stories about festivals? This book extends activities funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and awarded to Principal Inves- tigator Sheila Petty to host a virtual conference, “Transnational Screen Media Practices: Safeguarding Cultural Heritage,” at the University of Regina in June 2021 and a hybrid conference, “Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage: Africa in the World” in April 2023 during the Vues d’Afrique film festival in Montreal, and chapter contributors were participants in the events. Through our approach of bridging cultural practices that constitute unique local heritages with transnational sites of cultural production through the medium of film, the chapter contributions to this book will advance understanding of cultural heritage as a human and transglobal preoccupation that must cross borders. This allows for a transnational, relational nexus between Africa and global influences—culturally situated views of systems and heritage—“living” embedded within epistemolo- gies. Édouard Glissant’s theory of “tout-monde” presents a starting point because it visualizes culture and art production as an unfolding process, subject to both internal and external cultural contacts where the “syn- thesis/genesis” of identity and aesthetics are continually evolving. The theory of “tout-monde” is grounded in the philosophy that the world is globalized, métissé, and creolized (adding a layer of unpredictability). Glissant would often repeat, “Agis dans ton lieu, pense avec le monde”/ act in your location, think with the world (2009, 87). Tout-mondism foregrounds a decentering of hegemonic and Eurocentric points of view and promotes interdisciplinarity. It also cautions that while “seeing and 6 S. PETTY thinking large” (Imorou 2011, 34) it is important to take into consid- eration how the colonial past has informed present conditions of being. Chadwick Allen writes that “the local launches into the regional, national, or global only to become local again and again” evoking movement, flows, and journeys that are not linear but are “trans-yes, in the sense of across, beyond, and through, but not limited to national borders” (2012, 2). In his chapter “On FESPACO Mythology,” Olivier Barlet focuses on the Ouagadougou Pan-African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO) to probe how a myth is an imaginary construction that is the founda- tion of a social practice based on the values of a community seeking its cohesion. Since 1972, FESPACO has awarded the grand prize of the Stallion of Yennenga, in reference to a Mossi myth. The poster for the 2023 edition takes up the myth of this warrior woman who is also a builder of peace. FESPACO has always been like African cinema: a struc- turing myth. In 2023, a bust of Ousmane Sembène—himself a myth: “the father of African cinema”—was installed at the entrance to the FESPACO headquarters. But is the festival still aligned with the militant objectives defined by the great filmmaker? Whether it is a group of filmmakers or films, these fundamental issues have never ceased to be called into ques- tion. The rituals remain unchanged, as does the adjective “pan-African” in the festival’s title. What kind of pan-Africanism are we talking about? This mythical notion itself evolves like cinema, around the question of African identity. Meanwhile, the festival continues to defend its centrality … because FESPACO is also a bastion. According to the Larousse French dictionary, a myth is a story, an allegory, a character, or a belief that expresses an idea or force. Barlet examines the Ouagadougou Pan-African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO) through this lens to consider how necessary this appeal to the imaginary was, and remains, for the African film festival to conserve its top spot. In Chapter 3, “Curating Africa in Contemporary Film Festivals in Senegal: An Analysis of the Constellation of Collaborations,” Laura Feal and Estrella Sendra examine how, seventy years after the first African- directed productions on the continent, the industry is still precarious and thus, some festivals in Senegal are innovatively networking and collab- orating to build capacity and boost film circulation of both Senegalese and African films more broadly. This is a form of sustainability—a survival tactic—that involves sharing. It can best be described as a constellation of collaborations. The authors question the role of such collaborations in the 1 INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN FILM FESTIVALS … 7 representation and circulation of certain forms of African living cultural heritage and suggest that film festivals in Senegal operate as entangled constellations that forge a star system involving not just actors but also filmmakers and further agents involved in film production and circulation. These foster a transnational flow of films and film professionals, which operates as a “passport” for international exhibition platforms, thereby legitimizing the artistic value of these productions. The authors analyze two illustrative examples of festivals in Senegal that work in this direc- tion, namely the Festival Films Femmes Afrique and the Festival StLouis’ DOCS and seek to contribute to discussions on the curation of screen worlds and the shift from competition to collaboration in festivals and the cultural industries. In Chapter 4, “Journeys of Discovery: The Case of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF),” Lucy R. McNair and Habiba Boumlik offer an in-depth analysis of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF), founded in 2015 and co-curated by the authors. They contend that culturally focused film festivals, though rooted in local contexts, extend their influence by fostering financial networks, industry expertise, and thematic connections across regions. These festivals circu- late non-mainstream cinema, establishing alternative circuits that promote global recognition of non-English-speaking films. McNair and Boumlik contend that Indigenous film festivals engage with political, social, and cultural settings, serving as sites that promote Indigenous representational sovereignty and expressive agency. The authors show how, over the past two decades, Indigenous North African or Amazigh film festivals have proliferated, focusing on relational defi- nitions of Indigeneity and addressing historical discrimination. These festivals have significantly impacted the image of Amazigh culture and influenced film production locally and internationally. Located in a diverse, working-class, multilingual, and multireligious urban community college, NYFAF addresses two main questions: How is a film festival shaped by its cultural focus? How is an Indigenous film festival, like NYFAF, shaped by its location and audience? The authors argue that curating a film festival dedicated to an emergent Indigenous African cinema in a pedagogical setting initiates a journey of discovery, offering a temporary community of cross-cultural encounter and exchange that responds to the target audience, the moment, and to the evolution of this cinema. 8 S. PETTY In Chapter 5: “Virtualization of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) During and Post- COVID-19: the Scramble ‘To Remain the Same,’” Soubeika Bahri describes how, amid the COVID-19 global pandemic and just like many film festivals around the world, the New York Forum of Amazigh Film (NYFAF) also had to pivot to online and hybrid formats. The virtualization of the film event primarily meant trans- forming its relationship with the filmmakers and audience and changing the ways its organizers function between each edition while taking into account the pedagogical and transnational aspects of the forum. Drawing loosely on the concept of “scrambled to remain the same” (de Valck and Damiens 2023, 219), Bahri examines online and hybrid transitioning as new strategies and opportunities adopted by the NYFAF organizers to transcend the “spatiotemporal boundaries” (Kredell 2023, 51) and re- imagine a future look for this film forum with this new approach. Bahri argues for a different understanding of the virtualization approach and points to the importance of a reflection on the expressions of resilience, disruption, and place particularly in the context of small “genre” film festivals. Estrella Sendra and Robin Steedman look at the UK’s Film Africa in Chapter 6, “From Africa to London to the World: Film Africa’s Leading Role in the Circulation of African Cinemas.” They argue that Film Africa is currently the largest festival and meeting point in the United Kingdom celebrating the best of African cinema, and they explore what the festival aims to do and how its practices shape the circulation of African cinema in London and beyond. They begin with an exploration of the festival’s understanding of “Africa” in dialogue with the festival loca- tion. They suggest that the festival adopts an expansive definition, which encompasses the continent, diaspora, and those of African heritage, and show that curating Africa in this way serves as a way of acknowledging, embracing, and celebrating the rich and diverse range of cultural heritages that make up the population of London. They also reflect on Film Africa’s exhibition practices in relation to place. The festival is decentralized and hosted across different venues in various neighborhoods. This practice is a way of connecting to the multicultural and diverse populations in London and, very importantly, with the various diasporic communities in the city, while also being a way of bringing other audiences to the cinema. The festival is also curated thematically based on where the films will be screened, and this includes multidisciplinary associations such as curating music events and family activities. 1 INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN FILM FESTIVALS … 9 Through reflecting on field research at the festival as well as with its organizers (including reflecting on their own roles within the festival over time) Sendra and Steedman explore how the festival is curated, how the space of London is worked with, and the lessons that can be learned from this festival for other festivals in other contexts. In Chapter 7: “African Film Festivals: A Transnational Programming Intervention and Tales of the Accidental City as a Case Study,” Giovana Nabarrete de Souza Cruz and Babatunde Onikoyi examine how, from 2022 to 2023, three African film festivals—Mostra de Cinemas Africanos in Brazil, the African Movie Festival in Manitoba, and Vues d’Afrique in Québec—engaged in an exploratory transnational programming interven- tion that examined the impact and the perception of a pre-selected film screened at all three festivals. These festivals, held at different times of the year, frame their activities around cultural convergence, connecting film- makers and audiences, and exploring African living cultural traditions. The authors examine the outcome of screening Maïmouna Jallow’s Tales of the Accidental City at the three festivals as part of a programming cycle and intervention and demonstrate how the film reached a transnational, multi- cultural level that highlights the divergence in reception due to cultural context, thus creating a place for discussion between the local public at the festival and the African diaspora. Cruz and Onikoyi examine how the tripartite engagement was crucial to the filmmaker’s journeys across conti- nents, as her work met with richly-culturally diverse and transnational audiences, highlighting beneficial cultural exchanges afforded by such a programming intervention—which is, in itself, a curatorial approach. In Chapter 8: “‘Act in Your Location, Think with the World’: Constructing Audience ‘Afterlives’ at Three North American-based African Film Festivals,” Sheila Petty and Estrella Sendra focus on three African film festivals/programs located in Canada and Mexico. Begin- ning with an examination of the longest-running African film festival in Canada—Vues d’Afrique—in Montreal, the authors also explore a rela- tively new festival in Winnipeg—African Movie Festival in Manitoba, and finally a very recent initiative in Mexico to bring African films to Afro- Mexican communities. Petty and Sendra also look at selected “afterlife” events of the festivals that are organized to build year-round sustained audience bases and community impact based on Bill Reid’s notion of artworks (festivals) as “lives” and the community dialogues and events surrounding the works as “afterlives.” The authors envision festival after- lives, not in the sense of negative residue of colonialism or slavery, nor as 10 S. PETTY legacy activity, but more as a relationship between filmmakers and audi- ences and a relationship between filmmakers themselves (Dovey 2015, 100). The network of filmmaker-film-spectator is paramount to building communities and social networks off-screen in local communities and throughout the diaspora. According to Haida artist and master carver Bill Reid, an artwork/film’s “real life” is the process through which it becomes a work, but its “afterlife” is constructed during readings of and engagement with the work through shared participation in local and diasporic cultural manifestations (Reid 2000, 71). We sincerely hope that the chapters in this volume contribute to an on-going dialogue and create a “festival-knowledge forum” that respects the living nature of cultural heritage as it is received from its “original” context and then presented/exhibited, documented/safeguarded during film festivals and passed on to future generations! Competing Interests This research was funded, in part, by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development Grant #890-2020-0102 and, in part, by the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) Grant # NFRFR-2021-00161. References Allen, Chadwick. 2012. A Transnational Native American Studies? Why Not Studies that Are Trans-Indigenous? Journal of Transnational American Studies 4 (1): 1–22. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/82m5j3f5. Boukouss, Ahmed. 2012. Revitalisation de la langue Amazighe. Rabat: IRCAM. Boumlik, Habiba, and Lucy R. McNair. 2017. Looking for Amazigh Cinema—Developing the New York Forum of Amazigh Film. Transna- tional Moroccan Cinema. https://moroccancinema.exeter.ac.uk/en/habiba- boumlik-and-lucy-mcnair-summary/. Accessed 11 September 2024. Chan, F. 2011. The International Film Festival and the Making of a National Cinema. Screen 52 (2): 253–260. De Valck, Marijke, and Antoine Damiens. 2023. Rethinking Film Festivals in the Pandemic Era and After. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Dovey, Lindiwe. 2015. Curating Africa in the Age of Film Festivals. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gikandi, Simon. 2001. Globalization and the Claims of Postcoloniality. The South Atlantic Quarterly 100 (3): 627–658. Glissant, Édouard. 2009. Philosophie de la Relation: poésie en étendue. Paris: Gallimard. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/82m5j3f5. https://moroccancinema.exeter.ac.uk/en/habiba-boumlik-and-lucy-mcnair-summary/ https://moroccancinema.exeter.ac.uk/en/habiba-boumlik-and-lucy-mcnair-summary/ 1 INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN FILM FESTIVALS … 11 Imorou, Abdoulaye. 2011. Du Tout-monde comme objet d’étude: postcolonial- isme, histoire globale et poétique de la relation. Africultures 87: 34–42. Khatibi, Abdelkébir. 1983. Maghreb pluriel. Paris: Denoël. Kredell, Brendan. 2023. Scarcity, Ubiquity, and the Film Festival After Covid. In Rethinking Film Festivals in the Pandemic Era and After, ed. Marijke De Valck and Antoine Damiens, 41–58. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Mbembe, Achille. 2002. On the Power of the False. Trans. Judith Ings. Public Culture 14 (3): 629–641. Mbembe, Achille, and Sarah Nuttall. 2004. Writing the World from an African Metropolis. Public Culture 16 (3): 347–372. Reid, Bill. 2000. Solitary Raven: The Selected Writings of Bill Reid, ed. and intro. Robert Bringhurst. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. Royer, Michelle. 2024. Empowering Oceanic Voices: Francophone Film Festivals and Visual Autonomy. In Francophone Oceania Today: Literature, Visual Arts, Music and Cinema, ed. Michelle Royer, Nathalie Ségeral, and Léa Vuong, 63–85. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CHAPTER 2 On FESPACO Mythology Olivier Barlet Abstract Since 1972, the Ouagadougou Pan-African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO) has been like African cinema: a structuring myth. In 2023, a bust of Ousmane Sembène—himself a myth: “the father of African cinema”—was installed at the entrance to the FESPACO head- quarters. But is the festival still aligned with the militant objectives defined by the great filmmaker? Whether it is a group of filmmakers or films, these fundamental issues have never ceased to be called into question. The rituals remain unchanged, as does the adjective “pan-African” in the festival’s title. What kind of pan-Africanism are we talking about? This mythical notion itself evolves, like cinema, around the question of African identity. Meanwhile, the festival continues to defend its centrality because FESPACO is also a bastion. This chapter examines FESPACO through this lens to consider how necessary this appeal to the imaginary was, and remains, for the African film festival to conserve its top spot. Translation from the French by Melissa Thackway. O. Barlet (B) Africultures, Les Pilles, France e-mail: olbarlet@gmail.com © The Author(s) 2025 S. Petty (ed.), African Film Festivals and Transnational Flows of Living Cultural Heritage, Framing Film Festivals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_2 13 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_2&domain=pdf mailto:olbarlet@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88590-7_2 14 O. BARLET Keywords Africa · FESPACO · Myth · Pan-African · Film festival · Burkina Faso See Fig. 1. Fig. 1 FESPACO 2023 official poster (Courtesy FESPACO. CC BY-SA 4.0.) 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 15 1 Introduction: FESPACO as Foundation Despite the rise of African film festivals globally, FESPACO remains the main film event in sub-Saharan Africa, and indeed, around the world. The Carthage Film Festival (Les Journées cinématographiques de Carthage— JCC), created in 1966, continues to focus almost exclusively on the Arab world notwithstanding its initially pan-Africanist mandate. The Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), whose first edition dates to 1920, also gives the greatest prominence to Arab films. The Dakar Film Meet- ings (Les Rencontres cinématographiques de Dakar - RECIDAK) were held annually from 1990 to 1996, under the direction of the Consortium for Audiovisual Communication in Africa, headed by journalist Annette Mbaye d’Erneville, and then, until 2002, organized by Senegal. They were taken over in 2018 by the then Minister of Culture, Abdou Latif Coulibaly, but did not last. There was again talk of resuming them in 2023, but no follow-up. Created in 1979, the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) is the oldest and most important festival in South Africa. None of these festivals on the continent, or indeed throughout the diaspora, compete in status with FESPACO.1 2 From the Outset, Two Myths in One Alimata Salambéré, the festival’s first president in 1969, has quashed the unfounded theories attributing the creation of the FESPACO to anyone other than Claude Prieux, who was Director of the Franco-Voltaïque Cultural Centre at the time (Barlet 2022a). It should be noted, however, that a group of film buffs from the Centre’s film club run by René Bernard Yonli was involved in the realization of the project (Ouédraogo 1995; Dupré 2012). Inoussa Ousseini maintains that Claude Prieux was already considering the idea when, during his previous posting, he was head of the French Cultural Centre in Saint-Louis, Senegal. He shared the idea with Paulin Soumanou Vieyra and Ousmane Sembène, the latter suggesting that he continue to work on the festival project when he was posted to Ouagadougou, promising to mobilize his international contacts (Ousseini 2020). Two points of uncertainty have thus shrouded the festival from the start: its length, on the one hand, with many writers wrongly referring to the Semaine du cinéma africain (‘African Film Week’) when the program in fact indicated the Festival de cinéma africain de Ouagadougou du 1er au 15 février 1969 (‘Ouagadougou African Film Festival, 1–15 February 16 O. BARLET 1969’); and, on the other, the role of Ousmane Sembène, who did not create the festival but did take part in it. This gave rise to two myths in one. On the one hand, connecting the festival’s name to a small event suggested it was a local initiative free of outside intervention that grew of its own accord—the inference being an Africa that rose up with no support. On the other hand, Sembène was no more the father of the FESPACO than he was of African cinema.2 It was, then, Claude Prieux who set up a sixteen-member organiza- tion committee that brought together the workforce and administrative resources needed for a major event.3 That said, on the occasion of the centenary of Ousmane Sembène’s birth in 2023, a bust of the filmmaker was unveiled right next to the entrance of the FESPACO headquarters, so that anyone entering can pay him their respects. “Identifying those really behind an action is always complicated. Myths are founded because people need them. It’s not intentional”,4 stated Filippe Savadogo, Permanent Secretary of the festival from 1984 to 1996 (Barlet 2023). The FESPACO was only given its name on its institutionalization in 1972. This edition was considered the third, however, and it is inaccurate to use the name to refer to the first two editions. What was at stake, however, was the establishment of Ouagadougou as the headquarters of the Pan-African festival at a time when there was fierce vying between cities: “We above all needed to impose ourselves as the place of African film”, Filippe Savadogo adds. The threat has never gone away: “Other African countries were about to create an African television festival”, he recalls, which justified adding the word ‘televi- sion’ to the name of the festival. “There were even several attempts to take the FESPACO from us, with some countries setting up small festi- vals in ambush”, he continues, before adding: “But the Burkinabè are so welcoming that they would give up their beds and sleep on the floor. The filmmakers knew it”.5 (Barlet 2023). This was needed to make up for the permanent chaos of the festival’s organization. As early as 1976, the organization was such that Sembène exclaimed: “It’s a fiasco and that’s highly problematic!”6 (Sanogo 1980). Organizational hitches have proven to vary in nature and gravity depending on the editions, but have remained recurrent, with the FESPACO seeming never to have managed to cope with its expansion. The chaos reached its height under Michel Ouedraogo’s direction, so much so that the 2009 edition was dubbed the “Fespagaille” (‘Fespandemonium’)! (Barlet 2009a). He attributed this 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 17 to the difficulty in mobilizing its funds on time and to the sluggishness of “bureaucratic and administrative red tape”,7 calling for the festival’s institutional autonomy (Barlet 2009b). “It’s not a new demand, but the delegation needs more freedom to constitute its own teams. The fail- ings aren’t due to a lack of will, but to a lack of information and overall vision”,8 states Alex Moussa Sawadogo, who has been Delegate General of the FESPACO since 2021 (Barlet 2022b). For the root of the problem remains that, like the Carthage Film Festival (JCC), the FESPACO is one of the few festivals in the world to be state-run, and thus, to borrow Colin Dupré’s term, a state affair (Dupré 2012). 3 The Founding Myth of Yennenga In 1972, the FESPACO’s main award was symbolically named the Stallion of Yennenga in reference to Princess Yennenga and the founding legend of the Mossi Empire. A fearsome Amazon who led the royal cavalry, she became an indispensable war chief, to the point that her father refused all marriage proposals. But the beautiful Yennenga (‘the Slender’) fled on her stallion. In her flight, she met the young hunter, Riale, with whom she later had a son, Ouedraogo (‘the Stallion’). Once he had grown up, she sent him to seek the king’s pardon, which the king granted. Ouedraogo returned with goods and warriors, allowing him to establish the Mossi Kingdom. The festival’s anchoring in Ouagadougou was thus affirmed in refer- ence to this legend, which remains highly present given that, until French colonization, the central region of today’s Burkina Faso was controlled by the confederation of Mossi Kingdoms. In Eléonore Yaméogo’s Le Galop (‘The Galop’ 2023), a documentary parody of competitiveness based on the myth of Yennenga, Aristide Tarnagda’s text proclaims: “Genii never sleep; with no competition there are no geniuses, no glory. Every empire needs its genii”. While filmmakers dream at least in secret of awards, the film implores spectators to “develop oneself with others, not against them”.9 The festival would have been competitive as far back as the 1970s if it had had the means, but since the beginning it has promoted a façade of unity that is itself perfectly mythical given African cinema’s plurality. 18 O. BARLET 4 Under the Banner of the Pan-African Myth Inscribed in the festival’s title, Pan-Africanism has always been part of the program, even if the concept was perfectly mythical in an Africa deeply divided between non-aligned countries and Western outposts, and is one that today remains fragmented, if not to say completely atomized. During the FESPACO’s fiftieth anniversary, Alimata Salambéré continued to insist on this Pan-African dimension: “We must hold high the Pan-African flame to remain present in universal culture”,10 she said at the 2019 conference, but without specifying what she meant by the concept (Barlet 2019a). There are two types of Pan-African solidarity: radical and transnational, on the one hand, and internationalist and anti-imperialist, on the other (Mbembe 2010, 21). In film theory, this distinction between a politics of difference and a politics of sameness opposes cinema as an artistic expression with mass appeal and one which also conveys ideology—here ideology being Alimata Salambéré’s decolonial and Afrocentric discourse fifty years earlier calling for “an African cinema that addresses Africans; an African cinema made by Africans”.11 (Traoré 2019, 16). If the aim is “to decolonize screens”12 (Traoré 2019, 104), to use the now widespread expression, where, with the FESPACO, might this rupture be situated? Thomas Sankara declared in his opening speech at the 1982 conference that “African cinema is still colonized”13 (Humblot 1982). Since its creation, the festival has programmed films set in Africa but directed by non-Africans (the “Panorama” section), as well as films from the African diaspora. A significant number of diaspora films were programmed in 1985, and by 1989 the Paul Robeson Prize was created specifically for these films. In 2015, however, after lengthy discussions on the Africanity of the films, the Paul Robeson Prize was abolished, and films from the diaspora were then eligible to compete in the Official Feature Competition and thus eligible for the Golden Stallion Award. This was a significant, not to say revolutionary, evolu- tion: territorial categorization gave way to a global belonging to African descent. For the 29th FESPACO in 2025, the Paul Robeson Prize has been reinstated, and films from the African American diaspora are therefore no longer included in the other categories. Criticism had arisen when the silver Yennenga stallion was awarded in October 2021 to the film Freda by Haitian director Gessica Généus, and African American filmmakers, who had always unsuccessfully advocated for increased inclusion of their 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 19 films (which were virtually absent in 2015), further insisted on improved representation of their own films. The history of the festival has thus always been marked by the question of the filmmakers’ origin. The 1983 FESPACO decided not to select the film Le Courage des autres (‘Others’ Courage’) by Christian Richard, a French teacher working at the INAFEC Ouagadougou film school, shot in 1982 by an entirely African crew and starring Sotigui Kouyaté. It was produced by Cinafric, an ambitious Burkinabè private company run by Martial Ouedraogo, which produced several films before going bankrupt (Diawara 1992, 138). It must be said that the film’s theme was contro- versial as it focused on the razzias that certain Africans carried out against others to supply their contingent of enslaved people to the slave ships (Scoleri 2014)—a taboo, as it risked mitigating the horrors perpetrated by white people. During the Second FEPACI Congress in Algiers, the filmmakers adopted an anti-imperialist, Pan-Africanist charter on January 18, 1975, that came “in the wake of the transformative emergence in world cinema of filmmakers and theorists from the ‘Third World’” (Bakari 2020, 294). Denouncing “cultural domination and deracination”, they called for culture to be “popular, democratic, and progressive in character, inspired by its own realities and responding to its own needs” (“The Algiers Charter on African Cinema” 2021, 53). In Niamey from March 1 to 4, 1982, filmmakers, critics, government leaders, and experts came together for the first international conference on film production in Africa. The participants adopted what became known as the Niamey Manifesto (Bakari and Cham 1996) Unlike the Algiers Charter, the manifesto insisted on cinema’s necessary economic environment: developing movie theaters, distribution, technical infras- tructure, and professional training to improve the viability of productions. It called for television backing and an inter-state cooperation that super- seded the national level. It addressed ticketing, taxation, administrative bodies, investment incentives, specialist laws, and co-productions, with participants calling for appropriate legislation. Shifting from ideology to economics, it was a considerable change of tack, but this was also the moment that Thomas Sankara took power. For this Pan-Africanist icon, the FESPACO was a consciousness-raising tool. Like Julius Nyerere, Sankara believed that Africa should fight with its own weapons. This meant occupying the cultural and ideological realms of 20 O. BARLET cinema, or risk letting the adversary do so. In 1985 and 1987, respec- tively, the FESPACO themes were “Cinema and People’s Liberation”, and “Cinema and Cultural Identity”. After Sankara’s assassination, the also “rectified” FESPACO returned to economic questions in 1989 with the theme “Cinema and Economic Development”. This period of the FESPACO’s “unprecedented politicization”14 (Dupré 2012, 187) saw the filmmakers, Sembène at the helm, demon- strate their solidarity with the Burkinabè people’s fight for autonomy by spending a day on the Ouagadougou-Tambao railway construction site, which the World Bank had refused to fund (Boukari-Yabara 2014, 298). As for the new FESPACO Delegate General appointed by Sankara in 1985, Filippe Savadogo was convinced that the festival’s survival required “vigorous promotion to turn it into an essential vector of cultural diplo- macy”,15 by boosting its continental dimension (Savadogo 2020, 433). The FESPACO’s Pan-Africanism was thus above all a logic of unity, a promotion of African unity that increasingly included the African dias- pora and its descendants, in keeping with filmmakers who did not remain stuck in a folkloric assertion of an origin, but who worked to forge a new place for Africa in the world (Barlet 2005). Abderrahmane Sissako’s reply to Idrissa Ouedraogo, President of the Jury in 2003, was emblematic in this respect. As Ouedraogo handed him the Golden Stallion Award for Heremakono, he said: “I hope you come back to us!” To which Sissako replied: “To come back, you have first to have left, and I never have”.16 5 FESPACO Rituals Kept alive by “its mediatization and historic aura, the FESPACO’s centrality in Africa”17 needed to be constantly reaffirmed (Barlet 2022b). In short, the FESPACO needed to be made an invincible myth. That notably required the instigation of a series of rituals. The first of these is the first Sunday morning libation ceremony honoring the memory of the late filmmakers, in which festival participants join hands and circle Boubakar Galbani’s monument to filmmakers counterclockwise,18 “in order to represent resistance to the implacable logic of the passing of time”.19 (Sanogo 2020). During his lifetime, Ousmane Sembène would pronounce a few words. In 2003, as warrior-like as Yennenga, he declared: “We are gathered here to remember that we have a very fierce battle to fight, but also to remind us that we are convinced of our victory”.20 (Bosuma 2003, 59). The ceremony always ends with a family photo. 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 21 The 1987 inauguration of the Monument to African Filmmakers (a stack of camera lenses, film reels, and canisters) on the former Rond-Point de la Mairie, renamed the Place des Cinéastes in 1985, contributed to the same sense of homage and anchoring. Starting at this monument and running along the boulevard that leads to the cathedral, bronze statues of the winners of the famous Stallion Award have gradually been erected, in a sort of Hollywood Walk of Fame that here nobody walks on! Every edition of the festival has its own cloth printed with the FESPACO logo. The custom is to quickly get dresses and shirts tailored so that they can be worn in time, not least by the festival stewards present in the professional venues and ceremonies, but also at the cinemas, where percussion bands play before screenings as the audience enters. The ceremonies follow an established ritual, notably the Special Awards ceremony attributed by multiple juries, in parallel with the official ones. The FESPACO is the only festival where the Special Awards—mainly autonomous from the official prizes and awarded first—hold such impor- tance. They automatically come with prize money attached, and the sums are significant, competing with those of the Official Competition trophies, which are themselves sizable, and are given considerable space in the catalogues and communications. The FESPACO is thus also about money. The destiny of the Critics Award—a prize that, out of principle, has no award money attached—is interesting. Neither a Special nor an Official Award, it was hard to assign it a place. The possibility of an interna- tional critics’ award was long discussed with the FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics). After an agreement on an award linked to the prize list was reached, the FIPRESCI designated a jury in 2011. At the airport, its members, and notably the FIPRESCI President Klaus Eder, discovered that their plane tickets to travel to Ouagadougou had not been issued! Before the FIPRESCI’s reticence to reattempt this unfor- tunate experience, but wanting to boost the festival’s “cinema” standing, the FESPACO institutionalized the Paulin Soumanou Vieyra African Crit- ics’ Award in 2013, attributed by the FACC (African Federation of Film Critics), but as a Special Award sponsored by Radio France Interna- tional (which previously had sponsored the Audience Award).21 This episode was significant; film critics thus found themselves reduced to just their African chapter, and that says something about the destiny of a festival whose vocation it is to counter African cinema’s marginalization in the world, but which is still not endorsed by the FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations). 22 O. BARLET This does not prevent the festival from drawing crowds, however, and strengthening its aura with every edition. Even if the widely cited figures of the early years need to be viewed with caution, it remains a festive event that mobilizes the Ouagadougou public and many professionals and tourists—even if attendance has dropped in recent years due to the threats of terrorism in the region. One only needs to experience the opening ceremonies in the jam-packed 35,000 seat August 4 Stadium to measure the impact. Parades, a gigantic opening clap, equestrian, dance, and laser shows, concerts by famous musicians, and fireworks all ensure the festi- val’s magic. They, like the closing ceremonies where the award winners are announced, are broadcast live on national television. The opening celebrations then spill out into the whole city, into every local bar, and around the “crafts street”, an initiative launched in 1985 to make the festival even more popular. Initially situated on the Avenue de l’Indépendence, then on the Place de la Révolution, and finally near the cathedral and in front of the Maison du Peuple, this market brings together artisans and traders from the entire sub-region. Covered in posters, the Hôtel Indépendence, the heart of the festival before it was supplanted by the festival headquarters, used to bring “the world of African cinema” together around its swimming pool, facilitating interviews, meetings, and debates in a good-spirited and spontaneous atmosphere. Ousmane Sembène had “his” room there, reserved for him even several years after his death. Heightened by the free or cheap open- air screenings, this conviviality and popular dimension boosted the appeal of the festival, creating the illusion of a triumphant “African cinema” that had found both its economy and market—following which, “African cinema waits two more years to be celebrated again”, as Manthia Diawara ironically quipped (Diawara 2020, 53). 6 Mischief-Making Jinns When the Economic and Social Council decided to take back its head- quarters near the Rond-Point des Etats-Unis, work began in 1994 to build a new festival headquarters near Kadiogo Bridge (Sector 2). After many setbacks, it was finally inaugurated in 2005. Specialists in the Burk- inabè capital’s mystical history warned against this choice of location, sacred woods where ritual sacrifices used to be performed (Cettour-Rose 2018). On January 15, 2013, when construction was underway to tar 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 23 the roof, a fire destroyed the wooden frame of a new, nearly finished adja- cent building destined to house a main screening amphitheater, workshop and meeting spaces, and a spiraling exhibition gallery. Culture Minister Abdoul Karim Sango declared: “This is Africa; the contractors say there are jinns there. What can you do?”22 (Glez 2018). The construction site was abandoned, and the building left as it was. It was in this aban- doned building that Burkinabè Issiaka Konaté shot Hakilitan (‘Memory in Flight’) presented in competition during the 2019 edition. The film depicts an amnesiac professor who gradually rebuilds his life following the flooding of the Ouagadougou Cinémathèque in September 2009. This Mr. Cinema character undergoes rituals led by a spiritual guide accom- panied by gothic women. In 2023, Alex Moussa Sawadogo, Delegate General since 2021, organized a scrap metal sculpture exhibition there during the FESPACO, and open-air screenings throughout the year. 7 From Yennenga to #MeToo It is symbolic that the Stallion of Yennenga Award is named after an Amazon. Omnipresent, this symbol was reproduced on the 2023 edition poster fighting for peace (see Fig. 1). The Golden Stallion Award has never been awarded to a woman filmmaker; however, the Silver Stallion was awarded to Algerian Djamila Sahraoui for Yema in 2013, to Haitian Gessica Généus for Freda in 2021, and to Burkinabè Apolline Traoré for Sira in 2023. The Bronze Stallion was awarded to Tunisian Leyla Bouzid for Une histoire d’amour et de désir (‘A Tale of Love and Desire’) in 2021 and to Kenyan Angela Wamai for Shimoni in 2023. Significantly, the FESPACO has never had an edition theme focused on women. Conferences have been organized: in 1989, Cinema, Women, and Poverty; in 1995, Women’s Voices and Visions. Speeches have paid homage to African women for their endurance and industriousness, for being the mainstay of the family, but more as objects than subjects, objectified by men, and without autonomous subjectivity. It is only thanks to women filmmakers that this conservative vision has been challenged. In 1991, when no film in competition was made by a woman, a work- shop was organized under the auspices of the FEPACI, FESPACO, and the Vues d’Afrique festival in Montreal on the theme of Women, Cinema, Television, and Video in Africa. According to Claire Andrade-Watkins, “The workshop unleashed a riptide of emotion, confusion, and animosity which tore across the festival”. Debates were passionate, notably because, 24 O. BARLET at the start of the workshop, the chair of the panel asked non-Africans to leave the room, which caused a lot of misunderstanding, and a heated argument “arose on what exactly constitutes an African”. Women from the diaspora sent a letter of protest to the festival organizers, who responded with “abashed and embarrassed apologies” (Andrade-Watkins 2020, 204). The workshop ended with a Statement of African Women Film, Television, and Video Professionals calling for a greater presence and consideration of women in African film (Bakari 2020). From March 3 to 8, 2010, the five-day Journées cinématographiques de la femme africaine de l’image (JCFA) festival was launched in Ouagadougou. The festival awarded no prizes, but films received trophies called “the Sarraounia”. Journalist and filmmaker Laurentine Bayala published a daily festival news bulletin. For the FESPACO, this consti- tuted a platform for the promotion of African women in film (Ellerson 2020, 65). At FESPACO 2019, a roundtable convened by the Cinéastes non- alignées association23 on “The Place of Women in the African and African Diaspora Film Industry” brought together women film professionals, giving them a voice and calling to clean up the sector.24 Several female actors testified to the harassment they had been subjected to on shoots and the profession’s lack of reaction or support. Azata Soro, director Tahirou Tasséré Ouédraogo’s second assistant on the series Le Trône (‘The Throne’), revealed the attack she had been victim of during the film shoot, when she was insulted, hit, then had her face slashed with a broken beer bottle. Judged and convicted for these acts (Ouédraogo 2017), the filmmaker was nonetheless present at the festival to present his TV5 Monde funded work in the official competition. On March 2, the channel announced it was de-programming the series and terminating all collab- oration with the filmmaker (Pajon 2019). An online petition initiated by the Cinéastes non-alignées demanded the Le Trône series’ withdrawal from the competition, but the festival management refused, defending “the independence of the selection committee; works are chosen for their technical and artistic quality”.25 (Douce 2019). 8 Dissension and Challenges Despite its sought-after unity and pre-eminence, things have not always been smooth at the FESPACO. Disillusion and dissident initiatives have indeed dotted the history of the festival, tarnishing the FESPACO myth. 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 25 Recurrent organizational problems have been the source of great dissat- isfaction, especially regarding guests’ plane tickets and accommodation. The festival seems permanently overwhelmed by its ambition and success, but it is also a victim of its state-run status. In 1981, critical of their elders, forty or so young filmmakers present at the FESPACO with their first short films created a movement, which they called the l’Œil Vert Collective. They advocated for an aesthetically rich social cinema to radically decolonize film. They wanted “to rely on their own strengths, to put an end to the mentality of being assisted, to set up African co-productions, and to join forces to obtain services”.26 (Bachy 1983, 69). This movement was the object of much discussion but did not materialize into anything very concrete, beyond the production of William Ousmane Mbaye’s short film, Pain sec (1983). In March 2000, the Guilde africaine des réalisateurs et produc- teurs, created in Paris in 1997, published its first Bulletin. Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Teno was head of publication, and Chadian film- maker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun its chief editor. The aim of this Guild of mainly diasporic filmmakers was “to bring together African directors and producers in an association to talk more, share our experiences, improve the quality of our films, find solutions for a better circulation of our works, and to at last better defend our interests”.27 They too wished to put an end to the inertia and encourage solidarity. The Guild’s fourth Bulletin (May 2001) was entirely devoted to a searing critique of the FESPACO, its editorial entitled, A qui profite le Fespaco? (‘Who Benefits from the FESPACO?’). It evoked the festival’s “patent ineptitude” vis-à-vis both its guests and the catalogue, the fact that it appeared “not to give a fig about cinema”, concluding that “no one was about to sanctify the FESPACO”. It also stated that “the festival has not improved over the years, but continues to go from bad to worse”, yet adding: “It is because the FESPACO is dear to us that we are upset”.28 Despite its internal dissensions, the Guild initiated a “Semaine de la Guilde” at the 2005 and 2007 FESPACOs to “encourage new cine- matographic visions of Africa”. The Guild’s online blog was active in 2006 and 2007. The Guild was successively presided by Fanta Régina Nacro in 2002, Abderrahmane Sissako, then Dani Kouyaté in 2006, then from 2011 by Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda, and attributed an award at the FESPACO. The Guild criticized the poor quality of the FESPA- CO’s selection and its organization. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, winner of the Bronze Stallion for Daratt in 2009, declared in 2011, before being 26 O. BARLET attributed the Silver Stallion Award for Un homme qui crie (‘A Screaming Man’): “This is the last FESPACO I’ll be coming to” (Barlet 2011a). These two movements: the Guild and l’Oeil Vert, were created in parallel with the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI), which was accused of inertia or of being entirely driven by a few filmmakers. The FEPACI’s rocky history is linked to that of the FESPACO, as it takes advantage of the filmmakers’ presence to hold most of its congresses in Ouagadougou. 9 Conclusion: What Kind of Cinema? Made by a handful of individuals who had to manage everything in the early days, sub-Saharan African’s first works were auteur films, and the FESPACO was thus an auteur film festival. It long resisted commer- cial cinema, notably the Nigerian video films that emerged in 1992, but its programming came under increasing attack in the 2000s. By then, it included films that international critics considered of mediocre quality. This was seen as an insult to the pioneers, who had set the path for a demanding cinema that experimented in forms capable of capturing African realities and hopes. Was it better to try to win over the public or to develop challenging aesthetic explorations? The composition of the juries and selection committee, which for a very long time was opaque and subjected to diplomatic imperatives, shaped the image of the festival, which went seriously downhill in the 2010s due to the questionable quality of the films selected, to the point that the FESPACO became a “discredited” festival (Barlet 2017). Alongside the issue of target audiences was another myth that consid- erably impacted the festival. The pioneers had indeed always declared that they wanted to make films first and foremost for African audiences. Sembène’s aim was for cinema to be “a night school”, educating the masses. Films accessible to the greatest number were thus necessary, otherwise this would be a “cinema for Westerners”. The notion of auteur thus found itself challenged, as if auteurs are necessarily auteurist, intel- lectual, elitist, highbrow, dominant, etc., when in fact they are first and foremost metteurs en scène, “mise-en-scène in the sense not of a simple ornamental bringing images of a pre-existing story to the screen, but of a spatio-temporal construction of a world of images and sounds inhabited by speaking, acting, enduring, looking, or dreaming bodies”29 (Narboni 2024). Auteurs conceptualize their films with a whole crew, of course, 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 27 but remain their creators. Auteur cinema can be perfectly popular and reach a wide audience. Both a showcase and a springboard, the FESPACO needed to recon- nect with this affirmation of a locally rooted auteur cinema. Baba Hama (Delegate General from 1996 to 2008) envisaged creating a FESPACO- bis on odd years devoted to television and video production to recenter the festival on its objective, namely, the promotion of African cinema (Barlet 1998). With his “21 Vision”, his successor from 2008 to 2014, Michel Ouedraogo, wanted to turn the FESPACO into a political institu- tion working to distribute African film, rather than just showcase it (Barlet 2011b). The huge public success of the festival, which culminated at 400,000 spectators under Filippe Savadogo, Delegate General from 1984 to 1996, gradually waned until the “Cannes syndrome”, with its red carpets and sharp hike in prices under Michel Ouedraogo finished it off. Appointed after the October 2014 Revolution, Ardiouma Soma managed to put things back on track somewhat for the fiftieth anniversary in 2019 (Barlet 2019b) after its veritable downward spiral marginalized the festival. It was only with the arrival of Alex Moussa Sawadogo in 2021, albeit a profes- sional not from government ranks, that the FESPACO reconnected with its raison d’être: a tool professionalizing and organizing the sector that serves as a label for the films selected, while at the same time remaining a festive celebration of cinema (Barlet 2022b). Today, political instability, the regional security and terrorist threat situ- ation, and a lack of means threaten the festival and make the old dream of an annual FESPACO even less likely, yet the myth that would allow it to be so remains alive; today, more than ever, the FESPACO has the potential to be the soul of African cinema. It still needs to work more on its Pan-Africanism, however, as its workings and organization are still far too Francophone. Competing Interest The author has no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this chapter. Notes 1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_festivals_de_cin%C3% A9ma_en_Afrique. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_festivals_de_cin%C3%A9ma_en_Afrique https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_festivals_de_cin%C3%A9ma_en_Afrique 28 O. BARLET 2. In my humble opinion, when it comes to figureheads, Sembène was more a “turbulent big brother”, to paraphrase Erich Fromm, than a protective father. 3. See Wikipedia: Festival de cinéma africain de Ouagadougou 1969, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_de_cin%C3%A9ma_ africain_de_Ouagadougou_1969. 4. “Les vrais pères d’une action, c’est toujours compliqué. Le mythe, on le fabrique car les gens en ont besoin. Ce n’est pas volontaire”. 5. “Il nous fallait nous imposer comme le lieu du cinéma africain avant tout”, ajoute Filippe Savadogo. La menace n’a jamais cessé: “Des pays africains s’apprêtaient à créer un festival de télévision africaine”, indique-t-il, justifiant ainsi l’ajout du mot télévision dans le titre du festival. “Il y a même eu plusieurs tentatives pour nous prendre le Fespaco, certains pays ayant finalement créé de petits festivals en embuscade”, se rappelle-t-il, non sans ajouter: “Mais le Burkinabè est tellement accueillant qu’il donne sa couchette et dort par terre. Les cinéastes l’ont bien compris”. 6. “C’est un fiasco et c’est extrêmement grave!”. 7. “la lourdeur bureaucratique et administrative des procedures”. 8. “C’est une vieille demande mais il faudrait que la délégation ait une certaine liberté de mettre en place ses propres équipes. Les couacs ne proviennent pas d’une mauvaise volonté mais d’un manque d’information et de vision d’ensemble”. 9. “Les génies jamais ne dorment; sans compétition plus de génie, plus de gloire; à tout empire il faut un génie”. Alors que les cinéastes rêvent au moins secrètement du trophée, le film appelle cependant à “se construire avec les autres et non contre les autres”. 10. “Tenir haut le flambeau panafricain pour être présent dans la culture universelle”. 11. “un cinéma africain qui parle aux Africains; un cinéma africain réalisé par des Africains”. 12. “décoloniser les écrans”. 13. “le cinéma africain est encore colonisé”. 14. “politisation sans précédent du Fespaco”. 15. “une promotion vigoureuse le hissant comme un vecteur essentiel de la diplomatie culturelle”. 16. “J’espère que tu reviendras vers nous!” Et Sissako de répondre: “Pour revenir il faut partir et moi je ne suis jamais parti” Abder- rahmane Sissako, une fenêtre sur le monde, Charles Castella (52’, 2010). https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_de_cin%C3%A9ma_africain_de_Ouagadougou_1969 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_de_cin%C3%A9ma_africain_de_Ouagadougou_1969 2 ON FESPACO MYTHOLOGY 29 17. “la centralité du Fespaco en Afrique du fait de sa médiatisation et de son aura historique”. 18. “Boubakar Galbani: Concepteur du monument de la Place des Cinéastes”, https://fespaco.bf/boubakar-galbani-concepteur- du-monument-de-la-place-des-cineastes/. 19. “afin de représenter la résistance à la logique implacable du temps”. 20. “Nous nous réunissons ici pour nous souvenir que nous avons un combat très dur à mener mais que nous sommes sûrs de la victoire”. 21. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9d%C3%A9ration_africa ine_de_la_critique_cin%C3%A9matographique. 22. “On est en Afrique, l’entrepreneur dit qu’il y a des génies là-bas. Vous voulez qu’on fasse quoi?”. 23. La place des femmes dans l’industrie du cinéma africain et de la diaspora. Charter. https://www.annalindhfoundation.org/sites/ default/files/members/CHARTE%20ASSO.pdf. 24. https://www.annalindhfoundation.org/sites/default/files/mem bers/TEBLE%20RONDE%2029%3A02.pdf. 25. “l’indépendance du comité de sélection: les œuvres sont retenues pour leur qualité technique et artistique”. 26. “compter sur leurs propres forces, en finir avec la mentalité d’assistés, monter des coproductions africaines et réunir leurs forces pour décrocher des prestations de service”. 27. Bulletin de la Guilde africain, n° 1, March 2000, Editorial. 28. “A qui profite le Fespaco ?”, parlant d’une “incompétence patentee” comprenant à la fois la gestion des invités et le catalogue, “se souciant du cinéma comme d’une guigne”, pour conclure que “personne n’est prêt à sacraliser le Fespaco”. On y lit par ailleurs que “le festival ne s’améliore pas au bénéfice des ans, mais va toujours de mal en pis…”, pour cependant ajouter: “C’est parce que le Fespaco nous est très cher que nous sommes amer”. 29. “la mise en scène étant entendue non comme simple mise en image ornementale d’une histoire préexistante, mais comme construction spatio-temporelle d’un monde d’images et de sons peuplé de corps parlant, agissant, subissant, regardant ou rêvant”. https://fespaco.bf/boubakar-galbani-concepteur-du-monument-de-la-place-des-cineastes/ https://fespaco.bf/boubakar-galbani-concepteur-du-monument-de-la-place-des-cineastes/ https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9d%C3%A9ration_africaine_de_la_critique_cin%C3%A9matographique https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9d%C3%A9ration_africaine_de_la_critique_cin%C3%A9matographique https://www.annalindhfoundation.org/sites/default/files/members/CHARTE%20ASSO.pdf https://www.annalindhfoundation.org/sites/default/files/members/CHARTE%20ASSO.pdf https://www.annalindhfoundation.org/sites/default/files/members/TEBLE%20RONDE%2029%3A02.pdf https://www.annalindhfoundation.org/sites/default/files/members/TEBLE%20RONDE%2029%3A02.pdf 30 O. 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