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Scenes From a Diversion

In late February, a month before violent protests by the military in Burkina Faso prompted President Blaise Compaore to dissolve his government, an enthusiastic crowd swarmed Place des Cinéastes in the capital city, Ouagadougou, as well as a dozen other sites, as part of Fespaco 2011, the Pan-African Film and Television Festival that honors contributions to African cinema. The biannual “African Cannes” attracted nearly 8,000 attendees, according to Michel Ouedraogo, the festival’s organizer. Many packed the city’s soccer stadium, but others, in small villages like Pitmoaga, 30 miles west of the capital, were able to watch movies on temporary screens. And for a few hours on each of the festival’s eight days, it provided a welcome respite from reality.

Fespaco is the Panafrican festival of cinema, the most important in the continent. Every two years it takes place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

A great achievement if we consider that African cinema has the fewest economic and financial means of sustenance and that its distributive market is down to the bone.

The Festival, which is entirely “handcrafted”, begins in a 35.000 seat stadium filled to the rim, in an extremely colorful African context, intertwined by very kitschy ballets and shows. All within a city that is litterally taken over by dealers and traders coming from all Burkina Faso and bordering territories. During the course of the event, tens of films coming from all of Africa are shown through lengthy delays in halls assaulted by crowds hungry for entertainment. Spectators can view video-documentaries through the city streets in open air theaters, while pennyless associations organize “travelling” projections, between block parties and swarms of children shouting.

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An open air screening organized by a no-profit organization in Sapone a little villaage nearby Ouagadougou. The open air screenings that marked past editions of FESPACO have been scrapped in an attempt to lure the public back to the movie theatres. For years the African film industry has been ailing with the current global economic downturn expected to deal another blow. In recent years movie theatres on the continent have closed down, pushed out by widely available pirated DVDs.

Bintou Sombié is the leading actrice in Le Poids du Serment of Kollo Sanou, The Weight of the Oath, one of three Burkinabé films in competition.

Cinema Wemtenga is located in sector 29, one of the more destitute areas on the periphery of Ouagadougou. It is theatres like this that are in danger of extinction due to a surging home video market from Nigeria and widely available pirated DVDs.

It is not every day that the villlagers of Pitmoaga, 30 miles west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, watch a movie. But today is not like every day. Today, they welcome Cinétoile, a mobile cinema project funded by the European Union, showing African films in villages across the continent. They sing and dance as an official watches approvingly.

The Queen Mothers, Werewere Liking and Nserel Njock, sisters in real life, were born in Cameroon, live in Ivory Coast, but are "from Africa", they respond to anyone who dares ask what country they are from. They sing, act, and are general cinema celebrities. They enjoyed having their portrait taken, here in the projection room of cinema Patte d'Oie, on the periphery of Ouagadougou.

By day, Kinda Karim is the local postman. But by night, he operates the projection room of his neighborhood cinema, Patte d'Oie, on the periphery of Ouagadougou. He came by this afternoon to check up on his machinery, which he says is in dire need of replacing. The electricity was cut during a screening that same evening.

It is not every day that the children of Pitmoaga, a small village 30 miles west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, watch a film. But today is not like every day. Today, they buzz with anticipation as they await nightfall to see Buud Yam, one of their countryman Gaston Kaboré's most celebrated pictures, on a big, mobile screen, just like in the theatre.

Mahamet-Saleh Haroun, from Chad, is one of Africa's most celebrated directors. His film A Screaming Man, a father-son drama set during civil war, and winner of the jury prize at Cannes last year, came in second.

An evening film screening at cinema Wemtenga, one of the open-air theatres on the periphery of town.