I walked out of the airport confidently, ignoring all the traders who were trying to sell me sim cards, mobile phones or whatever else they had for sale. Then I stopped, slightly confused. Where’s the taxi stand? I wondered. I could see no taxis whatsoever. In Accra (where I had journeyed from) there were numerous taxi services at the airport. Official airport taxis, unofficial airport taxis and taxi drivers cruising by, hoping to pick up a passenger who has just arrived from Abrokyire (a trip abroad). Even before you fully emerge from Kotoka International Airport, men (and they are always men) in officious white shirts, and navy blue trousers will confront you with, “Taxi, taxi, airport taxi” but no such thing had happened here.

 

I paused and turned to one of the young men who had been trying to sell me a sim card “Je cherche le taxi”. “Qui, qui…” he responded, “Taxi ici” and tried to grab hold of my hand luggage whilst I simultaneously tried to maintain hold of my hand luggage. We walked to the main road. “This way, this way” is what I imagined he said, but there was no taxi this way. By now he had been joined by another compadre and they both resorted to hailing down passing taxis whilst simultaneously encouraging me to cross the street. Eventually a battered green taxi stopped in the middle of the road. “Tu connais l’hotel Laico?” (I can’t conjugate vous properly) “Qui” he responded, and so off we went…where to, I had no idea. In the taxi I texted my Mum, “I’ve arrived safely in Ougadougou. I’m en route to the hotel”. It did cross my mind that perhaps I should leave the safe arrival message until I had actually arrived at the hotel but hey ho, I was hoping for a safe arrival.

 

My predominant memories of Burkina will be women on mopeds, dry, dusty conditions and an amazing FESPACO experience. I’m still not used to seeing women on mopeds. Its not a sight that you ever come across in southern Ghana but in Burkina you see elderly women chugging along on mopeds, young women in little black dresses and heels on mopeds and women with their children on mopeds. “How empowering”, I thought. In a conversation with Deborah Ahenkorah (Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Golden Baobab Prize) she made a similar statement, “Women in Burkina appear so powerful. I get the impression that you shouldn’t mess with them…” Are we mistaken? Probably. Or probably not…

 

I had come to FESPACO (Pan African Film and Television Festival of Ougadougou) with three main goals:

 

• To participate fully in the festival and learn as much as possible about the current state of African film on the continent
• To speak on a panel with Amina Mama and Yaba Badoe at a CORDESIA workshop and
• To promote the work that AWDF has done in its popular culture project

 

Apart from a few logistical hitches, (printed programme booklets of the film schedule being a rare commodity, being sent all around the houses before arriving at the right place to purchase my festival and some technical hitches at one cinema) FESPACO was an amazing experience. I am already planning to attend the 23^rd FESPACO that will take place in 2013.

 

Films, Films, Films

Of course FESPACO was all about watching films. On Day 1 of the film festival I got together with Deborah and Kojo (friends from Ghana who were also attending FESPACO) and we eagerly went through the film schedule and highlighted those films we wanted to watch. Our film watching crew soon included Tsakani (whom Kojo and Debbie befriended over breakfast) from South Africa’s Arts and Culture department[1] and together we decided to challenge ourselves to watch as many films as possible! The film schedule didn’t contain a synopsis of the films so we chose films that we thought sounded exciting, and in my case I advocated for films with women directors (there were so few of those though). There were some days we watched as many as 5 films back to back.

 

Personally, my favourite films at the festival were:

 

• A Small Town Called Descent (South Africa)
• Dnoma (Haiti)
• Notre étrangère (Senegal)
• The last flight of the flamingo (Mozambique)
• Bullets over Brownsville (USA)
• Dusable to Obama : Chicago’s Black Metropolis (USA)
• The Figurine (Araromire) (Nigeria)

 

I liked these films for a variety of reasons and will review my ‘top 3’ below:

 

My Top 3 Films at FESPACO: A Nutshell Review and Synopsis

 

A Small Town Called Descent – this film reminded me of the best bits of a Hollywood blockbuster. It had compelling action scenes, good cops versus bad cops, a strong storyline and a romance doomed to failure. The film dealt with the hard-hitting issue of xenophobia, which centered on the murder of a Zimbabwean immigrant in the town ‘Descent’. The commander of the local police station is directly implicated in the murder and so is practically everyone else in the town (either through their action, inaction and unwillingness to speak up about the issue). We get the impression that the real puppet masters may not be the police commander or even the mob that lynched the Zimbabwean but the big businesses looking to buy up tracts of land in Descent. And of course there is the Afrikaner farmer who is the largest landholder in Descent, and was a high ranking military officer prior to the end of apartheid. We’re never quite sure how he is involved in the xenophobic attacks but we’re left with the feeling that he too is complicit

 

Dnoma – a complex, multi-layered film, which skillfully intertwined issues of race, class, immigration and sexuality. This film was located in France and combined several stories in one piece. There was the femme fatale teacher who gave her pupil a blowjob[2]. The woman who had been adopted as a child and decided to experiment with the concept of love and relationships by picking up a stranger at the train station and taking him home to make love/have sex. The young girl whose parents had moved to Spain, leaving her responsible for the care of her older sister who was dying from leukemia. The pupil (same one who had received a blowjob from his teacher) who was also a pickpocket, and was dating the girl who had caring responsibilities for her sister. The immigrant who worked long hours and sometimes came to school wearing his clothes from his job that later developed a crush on the girl who had caring responsibilities for her sister. Separate stories, yet all inter-connected and fascinating in its complexity and depth

 

Notre étrangère – A beautifully shot film, which spans Burkina Faso and France. The dominant themes deal with adoption, motherhood and the feeling of being a stranger or being caught in-between two worlds. A young girl leaves France in search of her biological mother in Burkina Faso but only finds her alcoholic Aunt who is overjoyed to see her and treats her like the prodigal daughter. The alcoholic Aunt is lonely; she has no children and despite numerous efforts has been unable to bear her own children. This is especially hard in a country, which valorizes motherhood and scorns the barren woman.

 

Whilst the young girl searches in vain for her mother, her mother is working as a cleaner in France. Although she had agreed for her daughter’s French father to take the young girl to France she never recovers from the loss of her daughter and disappears soon after the child leaves for France. The audience is aware that the mother is in France and the Aunt heard a rumour that the mother is in France but no one knows for a fact where the mother is located. The film ends without mother and daughter finding each other.

 

So how does all this relate to what I do at AWDF?

In 2008, AWDF formally launched a popular culture project at the Sixth African Development Forum held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 18^th-21^st November 2008. The launch of the popular culture project was in recognition of the need for women’s rights organisations to adopt strategies that can target a mass base of the population if perceptions, behaviours and attitudes are to be influenced.

 

In 2010, AWDF convened the first African Women in Film Forum in conjunction with the Lufodo Academy of Performing Arts led by acclaimed Nollywood actress Joke Silva on the theme, “Nollywood: Women and the Dynamics of Representation”. This forum attracted a wide and diverse cross section of Nollywood’s key players including Directors, Actresses, Scriptwriters and virtually every profession connected in some way to the film profession.

 

In 2011, AWDF as part of its 3^rd strategic plan has decided to add a new thematic area to its work, “Arts, Culture and Sports”. This presents a new opportunity for AWDF to extend its support for the Arts and to consider innovative ways of achieving gender equality.

 

It is very clear to me that the visual medium is a powerful tool and one that women’s rights activists haven’t engaged with sufficiently.

 

There was a powerful documentary screened at the 22nd FESPACO, “The Witches of Gambaga”. Women’s rights organizations at the public screening in Ghana on the 15^th of February 2011 described the film as “a gift to the women’s movement”. A gift because the film depicts powerfully (in a way no report can) the abuse that women who have been accused of witchcraft face and shows the complex interplay of gender, tradition and power which leave women vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft. Not enough of such films exist, or if they do exist are not widely disseminated.

 

We need more documentaries that tell women’s stories. We need action films that have women heroines (and not just as the pretty sidekick). We need films that show women in all their beautiful diversities – working women, rich women, lesbians, activists, happy singletons, women living positively, differently abled women…We need women producers, directors, scriptwriters, actresses, distributors…

 

See you at the 23^rd FESPACO in 2013.

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah

Communications Officer

AWDF