http://www.fespaco-bf.net/
This means a few things:
- Films are shown in the main Fespaco building, the french centre and several cinemas in other quarters of the city.
- Parking fees around these buildings go up from 100 CFA to 500 CFA (0.90 Euro) but organised with tickets
- More white people rooming the streets (often looking artistic: read badly dressed and unwashed hair)
- Souvenir prices go up and it is assumed you are one of them
- A few streets are very busy, closed off or both
So we felt we had to go to a film. To me it looked like the were showing a film at the French Centre in a room called CBC. It turned out that it was actually an entirely different place. The same goes for all the cinemas in the other quarters of town, you are meant to know where they are, no addresses. So we ended up watching 3 short films in the french centre.
Film one 'Drogba est mort' (Drogba is dead). A streetboy dreams of being football star Drogba and gets killed in a roadaccident. The maker explained all sort of deep things behind it which we didn't get. Fact remains simple: streetboys are poor and have dreams that mostly stay dreams. Advantage of this film is that not a word was spoken.
Film two was about a boy who went fishing with his father. At the end of the day they had to hand over the fish to a man to pay of a debt. The boy called them 'photofish'; we see them but can not eat them. One day instead of giving the fish to the boss he sold the fish and paid the boss of with a bit left to buy medicins for his mother. Lesson; give the kids education and try to start a bussiness. Again not very deep. Short film in english, not too difficult even if it had been in an other language.
The last was a bit longer and more weird. A boys father is ill, so he goes to see the witch. The witch gives him 7 tasks; find the sun, help someone, pay a debt ... So everywhere he sees a sun (on a shirt, on a truck...) he follows it and the tasks become clear. He earns some money by saving someone, so he can pay the landlord and when he comes home his father is well. Not sure if there is a deeper meaning. The film was in Kikuyu with very fast french subtitles, luckily the storyline was not too difficult.
Thursday we did what most locals do: First you make sure that traffic is disrupted by crossing without looking and park you moped/car close to the festival grounds preferrably in the way of something. You come in your best dress and walk around the stalls. Depending on your wallet you look at nothing, the cheap jewellery, locally made clothes, imported goods. In that order.
Besides the selling stalls there are a few charity and official stalls. Some of these seem to be just about showing of. You have a leather couch possible a desk with a printer and as decoration some cloth or flags. It seems not neccesary to have visitors. This is a stand we went into, to the surprise of everyone. There was not even someone there to talk to us.
This is about the fight against women circumcision. Still a lot of girls die this way.
After that you walk around the 'maquis' these are just cheap tables with cheap plastic chairs. There seem to be more of these then anything else. Generally you take your time and try to take as long as possible to drink your one drink. Some of the maquis sell the famous brochettes (meat on a stick). So we sat down, waited 10 minutes for the girl to take our order, took 5 minutes to explain we wanted to share a big beer, so only one, no we share, two glasses, no one beer, yes two glasses. We enjoyed our beer, got the bill, got some dirty looks and discussion because we did not have small money, we know this is a problem, but I really did not have any smalls.
To our own surprise we came home empty handed, not a t-shirt, not even a blow up Spongbob stick or a party nose-moustache combination whith a whistle if you blow through your nose.
It was fun.
So to try and overdose we are seeing Salif Keita tonight. Worldfamous albino singer from Mali.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salif_Keita
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