OUGADOUGU: French state organization Culturesfrance offered 500 copies of African films to Ouagadougou’s film institute Friday, after the Burkina Faso capital was flooded by torrential rains. “We have just signed an agreement with Culturesfrance to receive 500 copies to rebuild the African film institute,” said Michel Ouedraogo, delegate for the capital’s Panafrican festival of cinema and television.
A third of the 1,500 films held by the institute since 1992 were caught in the September deluge and nearly 80 percent of these are irrecoverable.
“It is like Alexandria’s Library: Down in flames a hundred or so years ago but recently reborn,” said Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, the director of Culturesfrance. “So the African film institute is not dead, it suffered a setback, but it will be back.”
Culturesfrance promised to “systematically” send the institute a copy of each African film that it digitizes.
Ougadougou has also been offered financial aid from other French state organizations as well as a Dutch foundation.
The Burkinabe filmmaker Gaston Kabore and Abderrahmane Sissako from Mauritania were present at the signing of the agreement. – AFP
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