It's The 40th Anniversary of Africa's Oldest Film Festival,FESPACO!

FESPACO is known as the African version of the Oscars.It is the oldest Pan-African festival which has been around for 40 yrs.now!Here's a clip from a documentary called "FESPACO".It talks about African-American filmmaker's entries into this festival.Here's more about FESPACO from artmatters.info:

"The bi-annual Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) runs February 28-March 7, 2009 for the 40th time since its inception in 1969 as a shop window for African cinema. It is hoped that the 40th FESPACO will cease being viewed merely as “a place for FESPACO civil service organisers to invite government ministers with their women to socialise at the expense of filmmakers”, to use Moroccan film director Nabil Ayouch’s words. OGOVA ONDEGO reports in retrospective on his way to Ouagadougou.

Over the four decades of its existence, FESPACO has been plagued with various ‘political’, ‘bureaucratic’ and ‘organisational’ challenges. Many players in the African audiovisual media sector, for whom the festival is meant, have over the years appeared to be getting more and more disillusioned with this festival that is billed as Africa’s largest film festival. Many of them have chosen to keep their distance from where they have thrown barbs at the festival organisers, accusing them of not just ineptitude but also of lack of respect for filmmakers.

Though having won FESPACO’s highest prize—the Yennenga Stallion—in 2001, Moroccan Nabil Ayouch kept away from the festival in 2003 as a form of protest.

Saying FESPACO was ‘disorganised’, he accused its organisers of ‘lack of respect for filmmakers’.

He was angry, he told BBC, about the treatment given to film directors by the organisers, drawn from the governnment.

He said organisers show films late—even for as late as three hours—and change screening venues without informing film directors who are expected to present their films. He said civil servant bureaucracy was spoiling FESPACO.

He had failed to collect the Yennenga Stallion for his film, ALI ZOUA, in 2001 as FESPACO failed to send him a flight ticket though having selected and put his film in competition. The organisers only realised their gaffe when Ayouch failed to collect his award.
He refused to excuse FESPACO organisers on what he termed inefficiency saying the festival was a great event 20 years earlier as “a shop window for African and Arabic cinema.”

Sometime back, I listened to various criticism of FESPACO from filmmakers drawn from across Africa and the world. They included Mahmood Ali-Balogun of Nigeria, Judy Kibinge of Kenya, Rahamatou Keita of Niger and Frances Ann Solomon of Canada.

“FESPACO organisers behave as if we don’t count,” Ali-Balogun commented. “We go to a conference and they conduct it in French while fully aware we don’t speak French. They should take cognisance of the fact that we use our own money to come here .They should translate proceedings of meetings in English besides sub-titling films in English.”

Ali-Balogun, on his third attendance at FESPACO, said the number of participants was declining instead of growing due to what he termed as ‘disorganisation’.

“FESPACO does not seem to be doing any assessment of what happens at their festivals in order to improve subsequent events. All they seem to be concerned with is that they host a festival and then go to sleep until the next one,” Ali-Balogun said.

Solomon, on her part, was disappointed that FESPACO does not readily avail information on events to festival-goers. She also expressed concern that FESPACO appears to be a mere cultural festival and not a market for selling and buying films: “Of the more than 5000 participants at FESPACO, only 23 were distributors of films,” she observed in 2003."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.