FESPACO: Malian film 'Wulu' wins the ultimate award

Malian film was among the favorites to win the the prestigious Yennenga Gold Stallion at the 25th edition of the FESPACO film festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. And now the film has taken the prize home, after competing against 19 other feature film fiction.

The film directed by Franco-Malian Daouda Coulibaly was awarded the Ousmane-Sembène Prize, named after one of the pioneers and greatest African directors, for its relevance in addressing “corruption” in a film that recounts the rise of a West African drug lord and the socio-political effects of drug trafficking in West Africa.

Denise Epoté, Africa director of TV5 Monde announced: “For the accuracy with which the scourge of the corruption of the elites was depicted, for the quality of the action by the cast, for the technical quality of the film, unanimously the jury awarded Wulu the Ecobank Sambene Ousmane prize 2017.’‘

Another film, ‘Borders’ by Burkinabe director Apolline Traoré received both the African Integration Prize awarded by the ECOWAS.

The Thomas-Sankara Award for Best Short Film returned to the Rwandan film “A Place For Myself,” a film that follows the life of a young Rwandan albino girl, Elikia, who has to endure discrimination and stigma when she enrolls in primary school.

The film was produced by Marie Clementine Dusabejambo, a young Rwandan filmmaker.

The other winner of the evening was a short film by a Burkinabe Jérome Nabonswendé Yaméogo, called “The Streets are not my Mother”, which received the UNICEF-sponsored prize for the promotion of child rights.