THE GATHERING OF A THOUSAND REELS 
SOLA OLORUNYOM1 
OUAGADOUGOU, February 
25,1995. It is past twilight and 
the sky is pitch dark and silent. 
Against this opaque expanse 
comes a meteoric explosion 
of infinite shooting stars 
in supra- rainbow coloration. 
The crowd of over three thousand 
personalities from across 
the continent burst into a prolonged, 
rapturous applause. It 
is the official opening of 
FESPACO, the Pan African 
Festival of Cinema and Television. 
Running through March 4, the fourteenth edition of FESPACO 
is also marking a symbolic double with its celebration of the 
one hundredth anniversary of the invention of the cinema. 
And during that century, according to Burkinabe Minister of Communication 
and Culture, Claude Somda, 'Africa has been mostly 
shown according to others' viewpoints.' 
While these images shot by film pioneers may constitute a great 
historical inheritance, it was urgent for Africans to talk about themselves 
by focusing and being the focus of camera. This sort of 
aspiration appears to have impelled the formation of FESPACO; 
which is undoubtedly the greatest showcase of cinema and television 
in Africa today. 
Thus from the plain festival where African cinema enthusiasts could 
enjoy watching a wide range of African films, the festival began to 
award prizes, introducing competitive showing and promoting of 
African films. These led to the creation of the film market where 
producers, professionals, buyers and distributors took up the centre 
stage. 
According to FESPACO sources, the introduction of a film competition 
first resulted in fixing film quotas per country. Very few 
countries reached three productions per year or even every second 
year. The situation has however changed, such that a pre-selection 
exercise has been introduced to delimit entries of films. The organisers 
have in addition set up two juries, one for feature films in 
competition and the other for short films and documentaries. 
After granting a square to film makers and building a memorial as a 
tribute to African cinema, this fourteenth edition undertook the 
opening of the African film library which will be provided with 
about hundred copies of African films already acquired. 
Dubbed Cinema and History, this year's theme appears to 
buttress what festival organisers agree would be the 'triple significance 
for Africa', of the centenary of cinema. Says Filipe Sawadogo, 
FESPACO Secretary General: 'It is the opportunity to consolidate 
the rehabilitation of our past memory and to strengthen our present 
in order to build a strong future'. 
In the bid to actualise these lofty objectives, FESPACO secretariat 
has instituted the appropriate structures in the formation of FEPACI 
(Pan African Association of Film Makers) and MICA (The International 
African Film and Television Market). FEPACI is geared 
towards assisting a collective action by African film makers, in an 
environment that is generally acknowledged as hostile to celluloid 
promotion. MICA's objectives are equally complimentary. It 
seeks to promote sale, help to establish contracts and exchanges 
among directors, producers and distributors. During FESPACO 
'93 for instance, in a space of six days, MICA registered eight 
hundred and seventy-nine effective screenings. 
FESPACO details basic regulations governing participation, competition 
and selection of jury in the bi-annual festival. While the 
event is open to all African film makers and their films, the 
National Organising Committee (NOC) reserves the right to 
accept films with a special interest to the festival. 
The Committee requires all directors and producers of entry films 
to send documents on each title and advertise them forty-five days 
prior to the opening of the festival. Copies of the film must also 
54
...there are other questions 
that FESPACO secretariat is 
being urged to answer. Why is 
the festival not made itinerant, 
for instance? And how 
come that of the eleven times 
that the grand prize has been 
awarded, only once has it 
been won by an Anglophone 
film maker? 
WELCOME TO FESPACO 
have been sent thirty days before the opening 
date of the festival. 
Any film at the festival may be shown at least 
four times, after which the consent of the 
owner must be sought for further showings. 
This year's jury, in conformity with Article 
13 of the General Rules Governing 
FESPACO, was made up of a chairman and 
ten other members, Sembene Ousmane, icon 
if African Cinema, stood in as head of jury in 
the edition. Even though nominated by the 
NOC, on proposal by the office of FESPACO 
Secretary General, the jury is sovereign and 
may decide not to give prizes, should it deem 
it fit. But this year it did, and abundantly too. 
The overall prize, Estalon Yennenga, went 
to Cheick Omar Cissoko's Guimba. Apart 
from this CFA5 million awards, the Malian 
carted off a host of other endowed prizes. 
The citation of the jury noted of this feature 
film: 'We had to encourage our European 
members and friends to understand this extraordinary 
title, which is as profound in its 
thematic thrust, as it is steeped in deep cultural 
codes and figural devices... enhancing 
its aesthetics.' 
A 1993 production of Kora films, it narrates 
the story of a potentially great continent 
which has, however, been despoiled by a 
neophyte elite. The occasional 'intrusion' of 
the narrating griot, adorns the film with an 
epic ambience. In one breath, he is constructing, 
deconstructing and reconstructing his 
tale, sparing neither ruler nor ruled. 
Fcspaco '95 Jury. At the centre is Scmbene Ousmane 
On the home front, the film 
industry in Nigeria is yet to 
get its acts together. Far 
from getting even, practitioners 
are getting angry. Hubert 
Ogunde once bestrode the 
landscape, urging for excellence. 
But between his demise 
and current practice, 
mediocrity seems to have 
taken wings and soared high 
in the industry. 
The citizens of Sitikali revolt against state 
tyranny as a means of redeeming their sanity 
and collective personhood. Even though its 
setting is a village, its symbolic reference to 
larger polities is not lost on the viewer: 
Guimba is indeed archetypal. It is a statement 
on the human condition, on the quest for 
unfettering our shackles in whatever contrasting 
situation we may find ourselves. 
Prizes were also awarded to the best short 
film, the Paul Robeson Prize and the best 
documentary. Honours were equally given 
to the best actress, the Oumarou Ganda 
awarded to the first feature of a film maker 
and, a prize for the best actor. Other awards 
for the best art co-operation include: the 
bests in scripts, image, acoustics and music 
with CFA 500,000 attached to each. 
55
But midway into the festival, opposition to 
its conduct arose. There were voices, essentially 
from the Anglophone bloc. The Nigerian 
delegation seemed to have taken a pivotal 
role in this stirring. Ghana and South 
Africa were two other prominent Anglophone 
countries present at a meeting held by this 
group on March 3 at the edge of the swimming 
pool of Hotel Independence in the 
Burkinabe capital. 
The consensus of the delegates was that the 
Anglophone bloc has been marginalised. Of 
all the groups, the South African delegation 
seemed the most tentative on what next line 
of action to take. It preferred reporting back 
to its home government as a first step. 
Yet, another delegate, Gadalla Gudara of 
Somalia, also complained of being victimised 
by Francophone intrigues. With the withdrawn 
mien of an octogenarian, this March 
noon day at the lobby of the hotel, he whispered 
to this reporter in a tone of the cheated: 
'I am the first cameraman in sub-Sahara 
Africa, but these Francophones chose to acknowledge 
someone else.' 
The Chairman of Nigeria Film Corporation, 
Breudan Shehu seemed cynical of the whole 
festival procedure, quipping: 'Honestly, my 
impression here is that it is more or less a 
French affair.' Asked to suggest the impulses 
behind this marginalisation, he responded: 
'Simple. France sees itself as assisting a 
colony, a former colony - Burkina Faso. 
They fund them in order to produce the kinds 
of films they want to see in their own country 
France. No one can do this to Nigeria.' Professor 
Frank Ukadike, the celebrated film 
critic, while equally being critical of the 
situation was, however more cautious: 'Let 
us not forget that without the French, the 
Ministry of Co-operation and other support 
networks they have inspired such as ACCT, 
Air Afrique and Carnal France International, 
there would probably be no African cinema 
the way we know it now.' 
But there are other questions that FESPACO 
secretariat is being urged to answer. Why is 
the festival not made itinerant, for instance? 
And how come that of the eleven times that 
the grand prize has been awarded, only once 
has it been won by an Anglophone film 
maker? This exception was Ghana's Kwaw 
Ansah' s 1989 Heritage Africa. To the former, 
FESPACO's Phillippe Sawadogo has responded, 
'making the festival itinerant is the 
sure way to kill it'. He cites Cannes and 
Carthage as examples of the need for the 
festival to be rooted in a specific venue, but 
the second poser still seems to linger. 
While Fespaco's 'phonelitics' rages on and 
West Africa may still be basking in the image 
of its earlier incursion into the genre than 
other regions, say Southern Africa for instance, 
the latter however is making spirited 
efforts to carve a niche in this feast of celluloid. 
The cultural boycott is over and South Africa 
made a bold and determined re-entry into the 
industry with the first ever South African 
International Film Festival in 1994, a fact 
tacitly alluded to recently by Anton Herber, 
Co-Editor, The Weekly Mail and Guardian 
when he said that the festival 'is a fitting 
celebration of our full re-entry into a global 
arena.' The festival is indeed swelling with 
its number of friends. Old foes like Ster 
Kinekor and M-Net joined old faithfuls like 
The Weekly Mail and Guardian. Running 
alongside the main programme, the line-up 
of events and special screenings in the '94 
festival included short cuts, a competition of 
Southern African short films, the Film Resource 
Unit's second Johannesburg T.V. programme 
and video market; Late Night Neck 
Nibblers, The Weekly Mail and Guardian 
on-stage interviews hosted by world-renowned 
Guardianfi\m critic Derek Malcolin 
and a situation comedy among others. 
As a means of co-ordinating its video production, 
the Film Resource Unit was formed 
in 1986. The effort of the Unit is geared 
towards the use of video as an educational 
and recreational tool in the Southern African 
region. 
The unit currently hosts an Annual Environmental 
Film Festival and, a Mobile Video 
Education Project (MVEP) which uses the 
medium of video for formal and informal 
education in rural areas. The thematic thrust 
of the films could be as deep as its scope is 
varied. 
A 1995 catalogue of the Film Resource Unit 
reveals a really diverse field of entry from 
music and culture, feature films and short 
films to cultural history, environment and 
development, reconstruction and children. 
Others cover the areas of women and gender, 
health and AIDS, labour and economy, and 
land and shelter. 
On the home front, the film industry in Nigeria 
is yet to get its acts together. Far from 
getting even, practitioner are getting angry. 
Hubert Ogunde once bestrode the landscape, 
urging for excellence. But between his demise 
and current practice, mediocrity seems 
to have taken wings and soared high in the 
industry. Quality has even moved lower the 
rung from U-matics to bare VHS video recordings. 
Nigerian Film Corporation Chairman 
Breudan Shchu deplores this situation 
and urges film makers to avail themselves of 
new colour laboratory and dubbing studio in 
Jos, Plateau State. This effort, he believes is 
more rewarding than the in-fighting and backstabbing 
that has become a familiar practice 
in the industry, the Jos-based Corporation, 
according to Shehu, is also making efforts to 
reproduce extra reels for film makers in order 
to make their titles competitive. 
Between Shehu's lofty ideas and the economic 
reality in Nigeria however, observers 
of the industry believe that an action of the 
magnitude of a miracle will be required to 
reverse the downtrend in the film industry. In 
the whole of 1993 for instance, the corporation 
could not produce a single title, due to 
extraneous factors. GR 
56