FESPACO: A Discredited Festival

Film professionals went home from the twenty-fifth edition of FESPACO highly dispirited. The trend already perceptible in the previous editions was confirmed, reaching an unimaginable pinnacle this time. The festival's organization was efficient. But in terms of programming, the FESPACO no longer represents African cinema. If nothing is urgently done to show it some consideration, Ouagadougou will cease to be "the capital of African film" and FESPACO will fall into oblivion.

At the same time, the sidelining of two important Burkinabe films prevented the host country from making the awards list this year. This article offers a critical review of all the feature films in competition, plus a handful of other films.

FESPACO is like a pilgrimage. Every two years, out you travel, eyes and ears open, ready to discover new films, meet the professionals, and to pick up on the trends traversing African film.

A Slow Decline

Having attended every FESPACO since 1993, I cannot not put this year's edition into perspective. Not only a highly convivial place to meet and reflect, FESPACO was historically both a showcase and a launch pad. It was in Ouagadougou that African cinema's latest gems were unveiled, and directors hurried to complete their films in time to be in the prestigious competition. The international media were present. It was a massive popular success too. Some 400,000 spectators used to attend the screenings in Ouaga's many cinemas, plus the free open-air screenings. A festive spirit reigned all round, facilitated by schedules tailor-made to suit the country's civil servants and other workers. It is these two branches on which FESPACO sat that have gradually been sawn.

On the one hand, the public has been undermined by the doing away of free screenings and a drastic hike in ticket prices. That went hand in hand with the introduction of a red carpet, symbol of the desire for a "glitz and sun" image. Today, even if the festival still attracts a certain public, rarely are the screenings too full to get into. English language films are only very rarely subtitled, and this is not indicated in the program. The debates after the films have entirely disappeared, as have the press conferences with the directors. Presentations consist of stating the film title, the director's name, and the film length, and the presenters rarely call the filmmakers and their crews up onto the stage.

On the other hand, the programming has gone downhill. In 2017, there were films in competition that were at times not worthy of being shown, or were generally cinematographically mediocre, and, above all, did not reflect countries' film standards. Some excellent films were relegated to out-of-competition slots, and others were simply absent. The predominant characteristic of the competition was its lack of emotion.

A Lack of Emotion

What is the point of messages and discourses? Why point, as Daney put it, when you can indicate with a glance? In Rousseau, when the Savoyard vicar wants to make Emile understand what he is trying to explain in his long profession of faith, he takes him up a big hill overlooking the Po valley and the Alps early in the morning. This view of nature deeply moves Emile more than any demonstration. There lies the key to culture, and singularly to cinema: emotion, which says a hundred times more than a discourse (which often boils down to that of an institution). It is not the facile sentimentalism of tear-jerkers that manipulates our affect! For when there is emotion, the pleasure of understanding surpasses the pleasure of consuming.

Many films incite us to identify with their heroes, to espouse their feelings and motivations and to share their tragic or happy destinies. In other words, to forge our shared destiny, ours and the hero's. That is where feelings lies. But if a film opens doors, inviting the spectator to fill-in the unspoken and the ellipses, opting for traverse paths and cultivating mystery and doubt, emotion is possible, sensitive and subtle. It is that which helps advance our understanding of the...