Most film festivals can be counted on to provide entertainment, laced with some introspection.

The weeklong (Pan-African Film and Television Festival) FESPACO that opens Saturday in violence-torn Burkina Faso’s capital goes beyond that to also offer hope, and a symbol of endurance: In years of political strife and Islamic extremist attacks, which killed thousands and displaced nearly 2 million in the West African country, it’s never been canceled.

A Burkinabe actress, Maimouna Ndiaye, who has four submissions in this year’s competition said:

“We only have FESPACO left to prevent us from thinking about what’s going on, this is the event that must not be canceled no matter the situation”.
Memouna Ndiaye

Since the last edition of the biennial festival in Ouagadougou, the country’s troubles have increased. Successive governments’ failures to stop the extremist violence triggered two military coups last year, with each junta leader promising security — but delivering few results.

At least 70 soldiers were killed in two attacks earlier this month in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region. The fighting also has sowed discord among a once-peaceful population, pitting communities and ethnicities against one another.

Nevertheless, more than 15,000 people, including cinema celebrities from Nigeria, Senegal, and Ivory Coast are expected in Ouagadougou for FESPACO, Africa’s biggest film festival that was launched in 1969.

Some 1,300 films were submitted for consideration and 100 have been selected to compete from 35 African countries and the diaspora, including movies from the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Nearly half of those in the fiction competition this year are directed by women.

Among them is Burkinabe director and producer Apolline Traore, whose film “Sira” — considered a front-runner in this year’s competition — is emblematic of many Burkinabes’ suffering. It tells the tale of a woman’s struggle for survival after being kidnapped by jihadis in the Sahel, as her fiancé tries to find her.

Still, Apolline Traore is upbeat about her country’s prospects.

She told The Associated Press:

“The world has painted Burkina Faso as a red country. It’s dangerous to come to my country, as they say, we’re probably a little crumbled but we’re not down”.
Apolline Traore

Government officials say they have ramped up security and will ensure the safety of festival attendees.

Many hope FESPACO will help boost domestic unity and strengthen ties with other countries, at a time when anti-French sentiment is on the rise in Burkina Faso.

Wolfram Vetter, the European Union ambassador in Burkina Faso, called the film festival “an important contribution to peace and reconciliation in Burkina Faso and beyond”.

The EU is the event’s largest funder after the Burkinabe government and has contributed approximately 250,000 euros ($265,000).

Iconic West African leader Sankara reburied in Burkina Faso

The late Burkina Faso revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara was reburied Thursday, eight years after his body was exhumed as part of an investigation.

Sankara’s body, and those of the 12 people who died with him, were reburied at the site of his assassination, which has since become a memorial for Sankara featuring a life-sized statue of the former leader pumping his fist in the air.

Soldiers and community leaders paid tribute during a ceremony on Thursday, some posing for pictures by Sankara’s coffin. All the coffins were draped in Burkina Faso flags with a photo beside them.

Sankara and the others were gunned down in the capital, Ouagadougou, during a 1987 coup and buried hastily. Their bodies were allowed to be dug up in 2015, after the ousting of former President Blaise Compaore.

people — People who were present at the reburial

Sankara, a charismatic Marxist leader with a reputation as “Africa’s Che Guevara”, came to power in 1983 at the age of 33 after he and Compaore led a leftist coup that overthrew a moderate military faction.

But in 1987, Compaore turned on his former friend in a coup in which he seized power and then ruled the country for 30 years.

Last year, Compaore, who now lives in Ivory Coast, was tried in absentia and convicted of complicity in their murders.

A Burkina Faso military tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment. Compaore’s right-hand man, Gilbert Diendere, and former spy chief Tousma Yacinthe Kafando were also given life sentences.