Category: Documentary section

Synopsis

In Burkina Faso, in the gold panning site of Kalgouli, 16 years old Rasmané goes down to more than 100 meters in artisanal mines for gold. Worried by potential accidents, torn by his parents’ doubts, Rasmané makes his way through this fierce adult world hoping for emancipation and better life, at the cost of his innocence. Gold panning is corrupting, moving you abruptly from childhood to adulthood, as it corrupts its natural environment through pollution and destruction.

Biofilmography

Boubacar Sangaré is a writer-director and also a lawyer specializing in film law. In 2015 he co-directed a TV documentary on the 2014 social uprising in Burkina Faso and went on to develop two feature films Or de vie and Djéliya, mémoire du mandingue. He worked as Africa Cooperation Mission Officer at CNC and TV5Monde Afrique Programme Officer. In 2021, he was a member of FESPACO International selection committee.

Synopsis

1960 marks the end of empires on the African continent. France disappears from the map leaving behind the CFA Franc, a colonial creation, the currency still in use in almost all of its former territories in Sub-Sahara Africa. Why is it that these States regaining independence have never denounced this strange legacy. The surprise announcement in December 2020 of the end of the CFA Franc replaced by the ECO is a ground-breaking moment in the eventful and little-known history of this currency, today at the centre of controversy. 

Biofilmography

Katy Lena Ndiaye is a filmmaker and producer who commutes between Dakar and Brussels. Her films have won awards at numerous festivals and have been distributed on the five continents.

Synopsis

A young photographer inherits his elder’s trunk of negatives. Cross-portrait of Paul Kodjo, one of the most influential photographers of post-colonial Côte d’Ivoire, and Ananias Léki Dago, a contemporary Ivorian photographer.

Biofilmography

Ananias Léki Dago studied photography at the School of Fine Arts in Abidjan (1990‐1993). He is also the initiator of the month of photography in Abidjan, “Les Rencontres du Sud”, held in 2000 and 2002. His work has been presented in numerous international exhibitions and prestigious collections such as The Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States. Ananias takes his first steps in cinema with a documentary film, he has directed, about the life of Paul Kodjo: Je reste photographe.

Synopsis

One day, at the foot of a tomb, Hassan fell asleep and never left the cemetery. For 40 years, he has made his home in the hills of Jellaz in Tunisia, watching over the dead and observing the living. In search of love and freedom, Hassan navigates between day and night and invites us to discover his worlds.

Biofilmography

Leïla Chaïbi began work in cinema as a camera operator on fiction films, documentaries and magazines. Since 2010, she has developed her own film projects and is interested in the question of identity and the Arab world. “Tous brûlés. La Maison des hommes “, is a portrait of prisons in Tunisia. She has then co-directed “Le verrou“, a film about the magic ritual of the Tasfh aiming to protect young girls from any penetration. “Gardien des mondes ” is her second feature.

Synopsis

Back in Gandiol, his hometown in Senegal, after eight years as a migrant in Spain, Mamadou seeks to be a positive force for his community. With help from his wife Laura and ubder the benevolent eye of Yaaye Khadi, Mamadou’s mother, he begins to build and share with his community the « active utopia » referred to in the book Mamadou wrote during his journey. The film takes us to a journey with Mamadou in his quest, to try to uncover his dream.

Biofilmography

Saliou Waa Guendoum SARR is a writer, composer and stage director whose nectar contributes to the universality of language, culture and representations. He believes that art can bring change and that cinema can help rebuild the way Africans see themselves. He directed Masque démasque in 2008, and Coup de filet en 2011 and Life saaraba illegal in 2016.

Synopsis

Quirino, a 76-year-old man, has lived for over 30 years in an abandoned village, in a deep valley, between the sea and the mountains. Feeling old, Quirino faces a dilemma of either to leave the only place he’s ever known or end his days there.

Biofilmography

Carlos Yuri Ceuninck studied and obtained a degree in cinema at EICTV in Cuba. He has made several documentaries including Listen and Sea; Without Taste; To Beef or Not to Beef, that’s the Question on the Isle of Mú (selected by many international festivals) ;and The Master Plan. In 2020, Dona Mónica received a special jury mention at Saint-Louis International Documentary Festival in Senegal. The New Man was short-listed to pitch at Ouaga Film Lab 2020 (Burkina Faso) winning 3 awards.

Synopsis

The film traces the history of former members of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK for short), the military wing of the ANC founded by Nelson Mandela, the father of the South Africa nation. The Western international history of this man tends to conceal the fact the was sentenced to life in prison for founding and leading MK. Also, before he became a wise old pacifist, he was a revolutionary at the head of a guerrilla army.

Biofilmography

Osvalde Lewat is a multi-award-winning writer, photographer and documentary director whose work focus primarily on social and political issues. Osvalde Lewat is a graduate of Sciences-Po Paris and has completed training courses in image at Femis in Paris and at the National Institute of Image and Sound (INIS) in Montreal. Broadcast by more than seventy TV channels around the world, her films have travelled the five continents and received several international awards.

Synopsis

The death of my uncle, a religious authority in the region, led to a Western-inspired court case, breaking with a centuries-old tradition of oral legacy : a “social bomb” in the making in West African societies. Our courtyard becomes the theatre where the future of an iconic family is at stake.

Biofilmography

Chloé Aïcha BORO is a French-Burkinabé writer and director. After studying modern literature, she began working as a journalist in the press, radio and television. Her novel “Paroles d’orpheline” was published by L’Harmattan and she directed her first feature documentary “Farafin ko“, which won awards at several festivals and was broadcast on Public Sénat and TV5 Monde. Then “France goodbye, le nouveau commerce triangulaire” – Best Documentary Film at the Vues d’Afrique Festival in Montreal. Her latest film “Le loup d’or de Balolé” was awarded best documentary film at FESPACO 2019.

Synopsis

In Burkina Faso, in the gold panning site of Kalgouli, 16 years old Rasmané goes down to more than 100 meters in artisanal mines for gold. Worried by potential accidents, torn by his parents’ doubts, Rasmané makes his way through this fierce adult world hoping for emancipation and better life, at the cost of his innocence. Gold panning is corrupting, moving you abruptly from childhood to adulthood, as it corrupts its natural environment through pollution and destruction.

Biofilmography

Boubacar Sangaré is a writer-director and also a lawyer specializing in film law. In 2015 he co-directed a TV documentary on the 2014 social uprising in Burkina Faso and went on to develop two feature films Or de vie and Djéliya, mémoire du mandingue. He worked as Africa Cooperation Mission Officer at CNC and TV5Monde Afrique Programme Officer. In 2021, he was a member of FESPACO International selection committee.

Synopsis

1960 marks the end of empires on the African continent. France disappears from the map leaving behind the CFA Franc, a colonial creation, the currency still in use in almost all of its former territories in Sub-Sahara Africa. Why is it that these States regaining independence have never denounced this strange legacy. The surprise announcement in December 2020 of the end of the CFA Franc replaced by the ECO is a ground-breaking moment in the eventful and little-known history of this currency, today at the centre of controversy. 

Biofilmography

Katy Lena Ndiaye is a filmmaker and producer who commutes between Dakar and Brussels. Her films have won awards at numerous festivals and have been distributed on the five continents.