Burkina Faso Film Festival

(Feb 28-March 7)

We had a screening of our movie, but it was bad. There was a sky light! So no one could see the movie. Just the subtitles, which had to be changed at the last minute cause they were too long. I was still burning the disc the night before the show when the others managed to get us free badges to get in to all the movies.

Me and Daria and Cheri shared a bed in our new friend of a friend, Lucy's room, a model and freelance interpreter who loves movies. Unfortunately Nash (Director) and Kari couldn't come at the last moment because Nash's father fell sick. I didn't invite Abdulai (Producer, Writer and Star) cause we were going into the unknown and he can be a baby.

One highlight was a meal we were invited to by people in the Burkina Faso/ French film/ TV industry. The waiters and waitresses were on roller-blades and they juggled, ate fire, contorted, and flipped. They served us salads and a slab of meat cooked by hanging in fire - we all ate too much and felt sick after.

I got to watch Real Films. My favorite one was 20 minutes. Shot on 35mm, sadly showed on video, called Nora. It was about a real modern dancer from an African village. She tells the story of her early life in surreal scenes cut with brief text. The main characters speak in dance and everyone else acts "normal." The filmmaker was around and I heard she organizes an artistic film festival in Russia, where she is from, but lives in the US. The modern dancer is living in New York but from Africa.

While I didn't talk to her I did talk to a bunch of Kenyan filmmakers who came with a nice short called "Killer Necklace." It was shot on the Red, borrowed from South Africa. They also had an unfortunate screening with skylights in the room! I was interviewed by BBC and that's what I told them about when asked about movies I saw. I actually heard it the night I got back to Ghana! (I had a brief identity crisis and introduced myself as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but maybe that's why they aired it.)

I knew the festival was a big deal, but upon meeting people from around the world there, learned it was the "biggest" in Africa. Mostly I hung with an Ethiopian/ French couple who lives in Amsterdam. Others included a group of Scottish and British living in Ghana, a Ghanaian journalist/ filmmaker, a German graphic designer, a Malian/ German couple, an African/American filmmaker with a funny movie about an after school program, a couple with a Ghanaian Beach Resort, a Global Film Producer (former PC Volunteer in China), and a German film festival rep. We also got a tour of an impressive production studio by locals.