Deschutes Public Library

Sacred Places

videorecording

Sacred Places

921961324

Originally produced by Jean-Marie Teno Productions in 2009

70

Set in St-Leon, a modest neighborhood tucked between the cathedral and two mosques in the city of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, where for 40 years, the world's famous FESPACO (Pan African Film Festival of Ouagadougou) showcases the best achievements of African filmmaking, Sacred Places is a film about the fight to survive and to maintain one's dignity in a hostile environment. Through the lives of three characters: Jules Cesar, the djembe maker and player, Bouba, the video-club manager of a neighborhood movie salon that also serves as a praying place, and Abbo a fifty years old senior technician who decided to become a public letter writer, JMT skillfully lays out his rich, very complex and profound observations on many paradoxes of today's Africa. One of the many contradictions the director displays is the absence of African films in African distribution at a time of remarkable tecnological advances: "The digital era and the development of the internet have profoundly changed production, distribution and viewing of images around the world. With small budgets, independent films can be made and shown to the public in a matter of weeks or even days. Yet, despite this abundance of opportunities, having access to one's own images is still a distant dream for many in the cities and rural areas of Africa. It is in these places, where people are kept in the dark, with little hope on the horizon, where education and knowledge are needed the most," says Jean-Marie Teno

live action