Director Ellie Foumbi wins top prize at Cameroon film festival

Actors, directors, and film buffs attended the closing ceremony of the annual Ecrans Noirs festival at the Palais des Congrès in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, on Saturday.

Forty-eight films were selected for this 27th edition of the event, with just 11 of them in the running for the top prize, the Ecran d'Or.

This year, it was Cameroonian Ellie Foumbi that came out top with her film, "Mon père le diable".

For film fans like Coriane Sama, it was a glorious week.

"I particularly liked the feature films, I discovered a lot of them that were screened during the festival,” she said.

Numerous series, documentaries, and actors also received awards, including Stéphanie Tum.

"I'm very pleased to have won a prize for best Cameroonian actress and I'm pleased that our film also won a prize for best Central African film,” she said.

“We had a great week in Yaoundé and I hope we'll be back next year to present other works and win other prizes."

A number of African filmmakers also took part in the festival and some of them did not go home empty-handed, including Senegalese filmmaker, Thomas Delgado, who won the Grand Prize for Best Scriptwriter.

"It's really an award in recognition of everything I've done and all the sacrifices I've made to get to this point. I'd like to say a big thank you to the festival,” he said.

“But this is recognition for my work as a co-writer, because I worked on the script with my colleague Ousmane Mati Dudu Ndiaye.”

This year's festival, which ran from 14 October, featured a host of African films.

But the highlight of this year's event was the tribute paid to the late Senegalese film director, producer, and writer Sembène Ousmane, who would have turned 100 this year.