50 years of African film at FESPACO

One of the oldest and most important film festivals on the African continent is celebrating a major anniversary: the Pan-African Film and Television Festival in Ouagadougou — FESPACO — took place for the first time in February 1969.

As is usually the case, the 26th edition of the festival, which began on February 23 in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, was opened with a fanfare. Horses are an integral part of the festival: the jury's main prize is the Etalon d'Or de Yennenga, the golden stallion named after a mythical princess.

African film buffs founded the festival in the capital of the then state of Upper Volta. To date, 2,140 films have been shown there and 160 prizes awarded. Since 1987, the monumental film reels on the Place des Cineastes testify to Ouagadougou's status as the capital of African cinema.

African cinema was influenced by former colonial powers. In francophone West Africa Ousmane Sembene went down in history as a pioneering African director. Originally a novelist, Sembene saw film as a medium for the masses, able to reach the illiterate. But the worldwide distribution of African movies remains a problem for the continent's filmmakers.

From the very beginning, African cinema has also had a political mission: to overcome the cultural domination of European colonial states and to oppose it with figures Africans can identify. Med Hondo's film "Sarraounia" tells the story of a ruler who opposed French colonization. It was awarded the Etalon d'Or in 1987.

Africa's directors have also successfully tackled recent history. In "Drum," Zola Maseko examines the life and work of journalists in the township of Sophiatown under South Africa's apartheid regime. He received an award in 2005 as the first South African and only second Anglophone filmmaker, a breakthrough. In the following years the main prize went to Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Others have also had to fight their way to recognition. It wasn't until the 2010s that female filmmakers came into the spotlight. They have their own annual festival which also coincides with FESPACO. In "Frontieres," Naky Sy Savane played an Ivorian woman who smuggles textiles to finance her children's studies.

The relationship to the rest of the world remains ambiguous. Filmmakers from the African diaspora were only invited starting in 1987. It took until 2015 for them to be allowed to win the main prize. And few African directors have achieved fame abroad. Abderrahmane Sissako was the first African to win the French film award César with "Timbuktu" in 2015.

The country in the Sahel zone was spared terror for a long time. The shock was all the greater when in 2016 the Hotel Splendid — popular among the festival's VIPs — became the target of an Islamist attack. The presence of international stars could turn FESPACO itself into a target. The following year security was greatly increased.

Digital films have been admitted to the competition since 2015. But they had to overcome yet another hurdle: initially, all digital films had to be converted in an expensive process. There isn't much of a paying public for African films, and directors don't have the support of television companies. To this day, the African film industry is dependent on outside support.