The longest-running jihadist insurgency in the Sahel nation of Burkina Faso loomed huge over the opening night of Africa’s largest film festival.
15 fiction feature films competing for the Yennenga Golden Stallion honor and a prize of about $30,000 have been chosen from a total of 170 entries for the FESPACO festival in the nation’s capital, Ouagadougou.
The 28th iteration of FESPACO, according to the festival’s president, Fidele Aymar Tamini, will focus on “African cinemas and peace cultures” in light of the current crisis.
The festival’s guest country of honor, the neighboring Mali, which is also battling a brutal jihadist insurgency, said that culture had a “avant-garde role to perform in the peace process.”
To thunderous applause, Choguel Kokalla Maiga declared that Mali and Burkina Faso are “brother nations” battling the “terrorist hydra” and that “our battle for peace and sovereignty remains the priority.”
In a performance titled “20 million VDP,” which alludes to a civilian volunteer force that supports the Burkinabe army, about 60 dancers imitated combat to the sound of beating drums on a large stage.
The routine, according to the ceremony’s organizer, was created to demonstrate the “bravery” of Burkina Faso’s youth in the face of the jihadist crisis that began in Mali in 2015.
At least 70 soldiers were killed in the same area this week in two distinct attacks that were attributed to jihadists, and this attack in the unsteady north claimed the lives of about 12 VDP members.
Over 10,000 people have died as a result of the bloodshed in Burkina Faso, and two million people have been displaced from their homes.
Burkinabe Minister of Culture and Communications Jean-Emmanuel Ouedraogo claimed that Burkina Faso and Mali, both of which were governed by military juntas that overthrew their governments, were engaged in integration and collaboration initiatives.
Also present at the event was Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem de Tambela, who recently proposed a federation between the West African neighbors.
The event is scheduled to last until March 4.
