Concerning Violence is a documentary film that examines the systematic violence and oppression faced by African nations during the period of colonization. It delves into the impact of imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism on the social, political, and economic structures of these nations. Through archive footage and interviews, the film exposes the struggles, resistance, and fight for independence of these countries.
Mediterranea follows the journey of two friends, Ayiva and Abas, as they leave their home in Burkina Faso and embark on a dangerous journey to Italy. They face violence, smugglers, and tragic events as they try to make a better life for themselves. Along the way, they encounter the harsh realities of illegal immigration, friendship, and the Mediterranean Sea.
The life story of Daniel Balimá, a horticulturist with a disability in Burkina Faso.
Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man (2006) is a gripping documentary that delves into the life of Thomas Sankara, the charismatic and visionary revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso. The film explores Sankara's rise to power, his commitment to anti-imperialism and socialism, and his tragic downfall. Through interviews, archival footage, and insightful analysis, the documentary paints a compelling portrait of a remarkable political leader whose legacy continues to inspire people around the world.
A group of young women from Ouagadougou study at a girl school to become auto mechanics. The classmates become their port of safety, joy and sisterhood, all while they are going through the life changing transition into becoming adults in a country boiling with political changes. In a country with youth unemployment at 52 percent, jobs are a hot issue. The young girls at a mechanics school in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou are right in the middle of a crucial point in life when their dreams, hopes and courage are confronted with opinions, fears and society’s expectations of what a woman should be. Using interesting narrative solutions, Theresa Traore Dahlberg depicts their last school years and at the same time succeeds in showing the country’s violent past and present. This is a feature-film debut and coming-of-age film with much warmth, laughs, heartbreak and depth.
An inside look at slavery in the country of Burkina Faso, The Courage Of Others follows the journey of a slave (played by Sotigui Kouyaté) being taken across the African desert by his captors.
In a quest to rediscover the spiritual values of his own people, an African filmmaker from the Gourmantche tribe of Burkina Faso visits an Aboriginal band, the Atikamekw of northern Quebec. The resulting documentary is a dialogue between those who divine the future in the sand with those who use snow-encased sweat lodges to reconnect with the spiritual world.
October 2014. Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, is the scene of an unarmed uprising that ousts the dictator in power since 1987 and later staves off an attempted coup. In 2015, the country votes freely for the first time in its history, yet real change remains allusive, especially regarding ongoing economic exploitation by foreign companies. In one year of struggle and resistance, the film follows the daily life of four Burkinabes: a musician and leader of the revolution, a local political candidate, a miner engaged in the labor movement, and an impoverished mother, all sharing hopes that the elections will change the country’s path.
Like a modern-day version of Deadwood, a makeshift gold mine on the remote Diosso hillside in Burkina Faso has attracted a swarm of gold-diggers and dynamite blasters, healers and dealers, vendors and prostitutes, children, holy men and barbers. Living in the promiscuous closeness of a crowded and improvised gold town, these men and women are recklessly determined to find the gold that will change their lives. The film explores their desperate quest for fortune and elusive happiness. The gold rush is relentless.
Four lives that could not be more different and a single passion that unites them: the unconditional love for their cinemas, somewhere at the end of the world. Comrades in Dreams brings together six cinema makers from North Korea, America, India and Africa and follows their efforts to make their audiences dream every night.
Thomas Sankara came to power in Burkina Faso in 1983, with the promise of a revolutionary government that would transform the West African country. To help build the revolution, he sent 600 children — many orphans from rural areas — to be educated in Cuba. But after Sankara’s assassination, the children were stranded. The last would only return to Burkina Faso in 2005. SANKARA’S ORPHANS tells their stories through interviews with some of the 600, along with archival footage of their lives on Cuba’s Isle of Youth — where both Sankara and Fidel Castro came to visit. Along with their education, the children worked in the fields and received weapons training. This, combined with their idealism, frightened the new Burkina Faso regime, which worried they might return and take up arms.
In a small village in Burkina Faso, a young boy discovers his superhuman abilities and must navigate the challenges of being a superhero.
A blacksmith falls off his bicycle when he tries to avoid a tortoise which crosses his path. He brings the animal home to his twelve year old son, Rabi, who becomes so fascinated that he forgets his chores at this father's shop. When the angry smith removes the tortoise, Rabi's grandfather, Pusga, helps Rabi find a larger one to consol the boy. Rabi wants to tame the animal and this new obsession leads him to defy parental authority. Pusga gently opens the boy's eyes to the visible and invisible ways of nature. Rabi starts to understand liberty, responsibility and respect for life. In turn he awakens long buried sentiments in the grandfather.
It is an ordinary afternoon for young Mabo Keïta, at home, in Burkina Faso (West Africa). While his parents are taking a nap, he reads a schoolbook on the front porch when a stranger - an elderly man carrying his own hammock - appears for an unexpected visit. It turns out that the old man is a griot, a West African musician/entertainer whose performances include tribal histories and genealogies. The position of a griot is a time-honored one and passed down from father to son for many generations.
At the time of the 30th anniversary of the death of Thomas Sankara, the African executive of a multinational mining company established in Africa, Tom - who has Americanized his first name Thomas - finds himself up against the ideal of his youth: each time he passes in front of a mirror, he sees himself with the red beret of the revolutionary leader on his head, and fears that his past will jeopardize his career...
Boromo, Burkina Faso. When Rasmané finds out that his friend Pierre has died, he sets off for his home town to help his family to transport the body home for his funeral. However, Rasmané hasn't reckoned with the traditional village elders who are strictly against them paying their last respects to a non-believer in the village. For Rasmané it is the beginning of an odyssey through Burkina Faso, as it turns out its not so straightforward to get the body of a man buried who was not baptised, does not have a Muslim first name and was not a member of any of the country's religious communities.
In the first half of the 1990s, Drissa Touré was an auteur fast on the rise, with his first fiction feature, Laada (1991), celebrating its world premiere in a Cannes sidebar, from whence it went around the world, Rotterdam included. Touré's next narrative project, Haramuya (1995), was again welcomed warmly and seen widely. But what happened then? How could an obviously gifted filmmaker from one of world cinema's true hubs, Burkina Faso, not find the means to continue? How did Touré end up riding a motorcycle, doing deliveries and errands? The fact that only a few years after Haramuya's release, Atria, the organisation where Touré deepened his technical knowledge of filmmaking, was closed down as the last francs of support were cancelled suggests that Touré's story is also a symptom of something more structural and grim.
After marrying a girl from his native village, Sokuro, a young Burkinabe immigrant living in Italy, tries to build a future with her despite the distance that separates their two worlds.