FESPACO 2025: Sahelian alliance at work and Africanization of Shakespeare’s Macbeth
FESPACO is the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou. The event needs no introduction for those who are familiar with African art and main cultural events. It was founded in 1969 to celebrate Black cinematographic production and reinforce the collaboration between Africa and the African diaspora. A general delegate works with eight prominent figures in the field of African and Black Diasporan. A special and qualified panel selects the meritorious films and documentaries in the competition. The Senegalese doyen of African filmmakers, the late Sembène Ousmane occupied one of the highest positions on the jury rating the FESPACO movies.
Development of FESPACO
The festival is a biennial event and this year’s edition was the 29th one. Over the years, the festival has undergone changes and modifications that strived towards improvement. FESPACO, therefore, highlights the richness of documentary cinema from African and the diaspora and strengthens cultural ties between continents in general; other groups that are not African or Black diasporans would like to be admitted into the competition, according to certain sources. So far, the festival celebrates the diverse voices that enrich the African and Afro-descendant cinematic landscape.
This 29th edition took place between February 22 and March 1,. It showcased 248 films from 48 countries and, as usual, highlighted African cinema’s diversity and cultural identity and the Caribbean is always highly represented by movies and participants. The theme was “African Cinema and Cultural Identity,” and Chad was the guest country of honor. Each year’s theme aligns with the realities of the context and most of the winners are movies that adhere to that context or those priorities.
The preceding edition of 2023 was based on “peace in a context of violence and insecurity”. No wonder the overall prize, the Golden Stallion of Yennenga (Etalon d’Or) was awarded to Tunisian Youssef Chebbi’s movie Ashkal that scrutinizes the situation of Tunisia after a period of political turmoil. One of the movies that was much talked about during that 28th edition in 2023 is Sira by the Burkinabè Appoline Traore. The chef d’oeuvre won several awards in various competitions and locations and captures the intricacies of a Burkinabè society facing terrorist attacks, a society where important and fundamental acts like marriages cannot take place peacefully because terrorists are lurking around, ready to seize the least opportunity and strike. Women’s empowerment was also at the core of that past edition and female film makers were much praised.
Culture and identity
Cultural Identity was, therefore, a befitting theme for this year’s 29th edition. The media posiits that important progress and victories are the outcome of the war against terrorism in Burkina, and with the creation of the Alliance of the Sahel States (it later became a Confederation) that brought together three Sahelian West African countries (Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger) and many other countries are asserting their support of this bold move. One often hears that many other countries would like to join these three. So, an anti-neocolonial path that hammers the conquest of dignity and the achievement of self-sufficiency are the key concerns of Burkina and her neighbours. Chad, the guest of honour flew in a delegation of about 200 members that performed in various shows and exhibited the commonality between the cultures of the Sahel area. Culture is, therefore, the best choice for such a festival. Another important facet of this year’s edition is the homage paid to the famous and talented Malian film director Souleymane Cisse who passed on February 19, just days before the festival started. He was referred to as Africa’s greatest living film maker.
Katanga, la dance des scorpions
This 29th edition stands out also with the film that won the top prize: Burkinabè Dani Kouyate’s Katanga, la dance des scorpions (KATANGA, the dance of the scorpions). This oeuvre is special for several reasons: the director Kouyate produced a great piece in 1995 titled KEITA l’héritage du griot, an impressive cinematographic rendition of the Sundiata Epic which the filmmaker refers to as a “great text”. One of the mesmerizing features of this year’s winner, Katanga is that the movie is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth. It is in black and white, was shot in Ouagadougou and its outskirts, revolves around the lust and corruption that come with power. This creation of an African Macbeth in Burkina is highly artistic and the director, who is the son of Sotigui Kouyate, another giant in Burkinabè and African cinema (he won the 2011 overall prize, the Golden Stallion of Yennenga) airs his view, on his movie in some of these words, below.
He states that his desire was to create a political and universal fable, to get out of time and colour, and to exit realism itself. The “atemporality” or timelessness of “great texts”, according to director Kouyaté is what he tried to show in Katanga. He does not refute the fact that some of the distinctive traits of characters or actors in his previous great film KEITA! l‘Héritage du griot (1994) / Keita! The Heritage of the Griot (in French) are found in some of the people in this award-winning Burkinabè or African Macbeth. Kouyaté says that his background as a story teller probably explains his love for what he calls great texts or canons. To him, both The Sundiata Epic and Macbeth tragedy belong to that category of “great texts”. No wonder that he turned each of these texts into a successful movie.
Katanga, la dance des scorpions is a medium through which the director wants to show one thing: African languages can present great texts. Mooré, spoken by about 48 per cent of the people in Burkina were perfectly able to convey and present Katanga, just like Early Modern English was the vehicle for Shakespear’s Macbeth. The director of Katanga adds that the Mandingue (general identity of the Mande people in Burkina, Mali, Guinea and beyond) could have contributed to his choice of this project which illustrates the verisimilitude between Macbeth and Katanga and he ends (a little bit heuristically) with the speculation around the fact that “Shakespeare was an African” according to certain sources. So, the winner of this year’s film festival of Ouagadougou adhered to the theme “Culture and Identity” of the festival, and the theme was manifested in an impressive artistic work: Shakespeare’s Macbeth can be produced in Burkina Faso in 2025, in Mooré and all the themes, sceneries and costumes will be accurately or convincingly reproduced.
Katanga is indeed a tour de force, a special icon in Black cinema and the world of films in general. The moment of the production of the movie speaks to the futility of the reasons behind the insecurity in the West African subregion, an area where peace, prosperity, culture and identity should be the leitmotiv. Shakespeare’s tragedy has been recreated in an African context. No barrier or difference should have a negative connotation. There is therefore no room for misunderstanding, conflict and war.
Moussa Traoré is Professor at the Department of English of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.
