BURKINABÈ RISING: the art of resistnace in Burkina Faso showcases creative nonviolent resistance in Burkina Faso. A small, landlocked country in West Africa, Burkina Faso is home to a vibrant community of artists and engaged citizens, who provide an example of the type of political change that can be achieved when people come together. It is an inspiration, not only to the rest of Africa but also to the rest of the world. Through music, film, ecology, visual art, and architecture, the people featured in this film are carrying on the revolutionary spirit of Thomas Sankara. After assuming the presidency in 1983, Sankara was killed in a 1987 coup d'état led by his friend and close advisor Blaise Compaoré, who subsequently ruled the country as an autocrat for twenty-seven years. In October 2014, a massive popular insurrection led to his removal. Today, the spirit of resistance is mightier than ever in Burkina Faso.
17 Jan 2014
Based on powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, this documentary is accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.
03 Jun 2019
How African artists have spread African culture all over the world, especially music, since the harsh years of decolonization, trying to offer a nicer portrait of this amazing continent, historically known for tragic subjects, such as slavery, famine, war and political chaos.
01 May 1953
Commissioned by the journal Présence Africaine, this short documentary examines how African art is devalued and alienated through colonial and museum contexts. Beginning with the question of why African works are confined to ethnographic displays while Greek or Egyptian art is celebrated, the film became a landmark of anti-colonial cinema and was banned in France for eight years.
25 Aug 2017
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.
06 May 2021
In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.
08 Sep 2006
Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso, was known as "the African Che", and became famous in Africa due to his innovative ideas, his devastating humor, his spirit and his altruism. More than a classic biography, this film sheds light on the impact that this man and his politic made on Burkina Faso and Africa in general.
01 Jan 2004
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.
05 Apr 2022
There is an interlinking history of violent European colonialism and the cultural legacy of ethnographic collections in institutions. This documentary traces the progression of colonial history from the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 to the systematic elimination of cultural traditions, religions and lifeways which would occur sporadically through genocides and warfare until the early 20th century throughout the African continent—surveying the inquiries and movements for historical justice, the relationships between European institutions and colonial violence and following enduring struggles against these organisations to regain what was taken.
11 Sep 2024
Thousands of royal artifacts of Dahomey, a West African kingdom, were taken by French colonists in the 19th century for collection and display in Paris. Centuries later, a fraction returned to their home in modern-day Benin. This dramatized documentary follows the journey of 26 of the treasures as told by cultural art historians, embattled university students, and one of the repatriated statues himself.
06 Jun 2012
Documentary about filmmaker, author, director, and performance artist Christoph Schlingensief and his last major project, building an opera village in Burkina Faso. What was initially planned as a festival theater soon developed into a more ambitious idea, and in addition to the theater, a school, a hospital, and living quarters for teachers and nursing staff were also planned. Beginning with the search for a suitable building site, the film also recounts the difficulties encountered during the work and Schlingensief's advancing cancer.
01 Jun 1986
Commemorating the 1986 Tunis-Paris exhibition Privileged Spaces and Times: French-Speaking Intellectual Production in Tunisia, Sarah Maldoror’s film points the way toward a more polyvocal understanding of the role of France’s National Library worldwide.
02 Feb 2023
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.
11 Jun 2025
No overview found
12 Nov 2002
This documentary follows the traces of the French colonization of the country Lobi. In this region of southwestern Burkina Faso, there is not a village, not a family that does not remember the suffering brought by the colonizers. Confronted with the archival documents of the administrators, the oral tradition, through its numerous testimonies, allows us to trace back nearly a century of history, from the arrival of the first Whites until today. This word also testifies to the individual, social or religious consequences of this often painful history. Between the past and the present, between the living words and the writings of the colonists, "Mémoire entre deux rives" is as much a quest for Lobi identity as a reflection on "civilising" France.
18 Sep 2025
For decades, the countries of the African Sahel region have been targets of colonialism and exploitation by France and other Western powers. This documentary addresses the popular resistance and new paths of development forged by Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali after experiencing civil and military uprisings in recent years. The film explores the popular resistance that sustains the revolution in the three Sahel countries and was made after extensive coverage of the ongoing social dynamics and geopolitical disputes.
01 Jan 2009
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.
No overview found
01 Dec 2024
Germany holds the largest collection of Cameroonian cultural objects in the world in its Ethnological museums. One important piece is 'Mandu Yenu' the Royal Throne of Bamum, a striking work adorned with glass beads and cowrie shells, also known as the Pearl Throne. What should be done with this masterwork and other pieces overshadowed by their colonial heritage?
No overview found
08 Mar 2023
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.