But a slew of films showcased in the continent’s biggest movie festival could be a cinematic watershed.<\/p>\n
“When people talk about terrorism, they don’t talk much about women,” said Apolline Traore, a director from the festival’s host country, Burkina Faso, which has suffered grievously from jihadism.<\/p>\n
Traore’s feature-length “Sira,” which won the Silver Stallion of Yennenga award in the FESPACO festival that ended on Saturday, describes a 25-year-old woman who is abducted by jihadists and has to draw on courage and smartness to survive.<\/p>\n
Traore said she wanted to haul women out of the typical image of victimhood and place them in the “major role… (they play) in the fight against terrorism”.<\/p>\n
The director said she was inspired by meeting women whose lives had been turned upside-down by jihadists.<\/p>\n
One example, she said, was a woman who with a bullet lodged in her shoulder had spent five days looking for shelter for herself and her two children.<\/p>\n
Nafissatou Cisse, a Burkinabe actress who plays the lead role of Sira, said she had drawn on “the rage” of women caught in the jihadist nightmare.<\/p>\n
More than 10,000 people have lost their lives in Burkina Faso since jihadists swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015 and more than two million people have fled their homes.<\/p>\n
Around 40 percent of the country is controlled by the insurgents.<\/p>\n
Making “Sira” was in itself a gruelling challenge.<\/p>\n
After a massacre at Solhan in June 2021 that left 132 dead — the bloodiest single attack in the long-running jihadist campaign — the authorities declined to renew authorisation for filming “Sira” in Burkina’s deeply troubled north.<\/p>\n
‘Terrorists use women’
\nAnother director whose home country is struggling with jihadism is Amina Mamani.<\/p>\n
Her native Nigeria is the cradle of the Boko Haram movement, whose attacks began in 2009 and metastasised to Cameroon, Niger and Chad.<\/p>\n
It leapt to global notoriety in 2014, when hundreds of schoolgirls were kidnapped in Chibok, in Borno state.<\/p>\n
Mamani’s short film, “The Envoy of God,” tells the story of a girl aged about 10, who is kidnapped one night by jihadists to use her to carry out a suicide attack on a market — but she decides otherwise.<\/p>\n
“Terrorists use women. Men get killed, but women are kidnapped, forced into marriage and raped, and young girls selected to blow themselves up,” said Mamani.<\/p>\n
In another feature-length film, “Thorns of the Sahel,” Burkinabe director Boubakar Diallo describes a nurse who is sent to a displaced persons’ camp.<\/p>\n
She said that during the film shoot, some of the displaced people “panicked when they saw armed men” — actors playing the part of jihadists.<\/p>\n
“We had to build up trust with them,” she said.<\/p>\n
‘Sensitive’
\nTraore said that in all her 20 years in film-making, she had never experienced such fear in showing a film.<\/p>\n
She fretted especially about how the public would react to her work.<\/p>\n
“(Jihadism) is very sensitive and fresh in the heart of Burkinabe people and people living in the Sahel,” she said.<\/p>\n
Launched in 1969, the biennial Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) draws thousands of movie fans and professionals from across the continent.<\/p>\n
It is also closely followed by the US and European movie industries, which scout the event for new films, talent and ideas.<\/p>\n
A total of 170 films competed in this year’s event, whose theme was “African cinema and culture of peace”.<\/p>\n
Tunisian director Youssef Chebbi won the top prize, the coveted Golden Stallion, for murder mystery “Ashkal”.<\/p>\n
Under festival rules, films chosen for competition have to be made by Africans and predominantly produced in Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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