The General Delegate of FESPACO, Alex Moussa SAWADOGO, has chosen his selection committee leaders, who will be responsible for defining the programme of FESPACO 2021. The postponement of the Festival allows the new team to start the selection process as soon as possible and in very good conditions.

Alex Moussa Sawadogo will be accompanied by professionals who have built their careers within the African and global film industry and whose strong and diverse profiles will facilitate the exploration of an increasingly diverse African film landscape.

The committee is composed of several officers:

Pedro Pimenta / Mozambique: producer, film consultant, artistic director, collaborator in many diverse film projects and industry initiatives such as Ebano Multimedia (Mozambique), UNESCO Zimbabwe Film & Video Training Project for South Africa, Dockanema. He was artistic director of the Durban International Film Festival.

Djia Mambu / R D Congo: Belgian-Congolese journalist, film critic and author. Member of the African Federation of Film Critics (FACC), she has collaborated with several editorial offices, including Africultures, Africiné and the Journal télévisé Afrique on TV5. Djia Mambu has also joined the programming committee of the International Francophone Film Festival of Namur in Belgium (FIFF).

Thierno Ibrahima Dia/ Senegal: a Senegalese arts researcher and journalist, he has been teaching comparative cinema since 1999 at Bordeaux Montaigne University and also in Niamey. Editor-in-chief of Africiné Magazine (www.africine.org, Dakar), he is the author of several books, articles, training courses and conferences (Milan, Luxor, Science Po Bordeaux, INALCO, Libreville, Durban...). Former editorial director of Images Francophones (OIF, 2012 to 2018), Thierno Ibrahima Dia has been working with Africultures since 2004.

Katarina Hedrén / Ethiopia: Curator and film critic, she lives in South Africa. She has curated and co-curated films at the CinemAfrica Film Festival in Stockholm, the First Wednesday Film Club in Johannesburg, the European Film Festival in South Africa, African Film Week in Addis Ababa and Film Africa in London. Katarina regularly supports film festivals, film markets, film funds and film-related initiatives around the world as a consultant, advisor, mentor, panelist and moderator.

Lina Chabanne / Tunisia: Executive producer on the feature films "Satin Rouge", "Les Secrets" and "Corps étranger" by Raja Amari; "Inhebbek Hédi" and "Weldi" by Mohamed Ben Attia. She has been a member of the pedagogical committee of the SUD ECRITURE scriptwriting workshop since 1997 and of the pedagogical committee of Med Film Factory, a training programme for Arab producers and directors since 2014. Organiser of the JCC projects workshop from 1992 to 2006, member of the steering committee and the selection committee of the same festival in 2008, 2010 and 2014. She is currently a member of the Selection Committee and Executive Director of the Mediterranean Festival of Tunisia, Manarat, in 2018, 2019 and 2021.

Boubacar Sangaré / Burkina Faso: PhD student in law on the principle of territoriality and the construction of a single francophone space for cinema and audiovisual in the UEMOA space in Africa. From 2012 to 2015 he collaborated with the association Semfilms, both as a member of the selection and programming committee of the Ciné Droit Libre festival. He has been in charge of the Africa Cooperation mission at the National Cinema Centre /CNC France. In this capacity, he collaborated in the creation of the "Jeune création francophone" (JCF) fund. He was also in charge of programmes at the TV5MONDE programme and scheduling department, then consultant on series programmes developed by the channel.

Guy Désiré Yaméogo /Burkina Faso: Teacher at the Institut supérieur de l'image et du son (ISIS) in Ouagadougou. Director and scriptwriter, he has a degree in Sociology from the University of Ouagadougou and was trained at the School of Cinema and Television in Havana, Cuba, with a script option. Since his first film "Si longue que soit la nuit" (So long as the night is), which won a prize in Cannes in 1996, Guy-Désiré Yaméogo has been very prolific and has directed about ten feature films and short fiction films as well as documentaries. He is the scriptwriter of many Burkinabe films and has been working for a long time at FESPACO as artistic advisor to the general delegate.

Laza Razajanatovo/Madagascar: creator and director of the festival "Rencontres du Film Court de Madagasikara (RFC), he has produced the works of most of the young Malagasy directors of the last 15 years. President of APASER (Pan-African Alliance of Screenwriters and Directors), he is very involved in projects for the defence of African authors' rights. He has been a member of the Cinema Commission of the Image Fund of the Francophonie (OIF) and a jury member in many film festivals: FESPACO, JCC, Interfilm in Berlin, Kenya International Film Festival (KIFF), Festival International du Film d'Afrique et des Iles (FIFAI) and Comoros International Film.

The new selection committee will have the task of accompanying the artistic delegate in defining the programme of the 27th edition of FESPACO.

According to the General Delegate,''For a festival of the size of FESPACO, it is more than important to have a selection committee made up of motivated professionals, whose skills and experience offer a variety of perspectives that perfectly embody the ambitions of a pan-African festival. The festival also wants to respond to the times.
The General Delegation of FESPACO is working in strict compliance with the health regulations in force, in order to offer a complete edition that will take place in the last quarter of the year. The exact dates will be announced soon.

The call for film submissions, which has been extended, ends on 31 March 2021.

Moussa Alex SAWADOGO
General Delegate of FESPACO

Editor's note: This is the first time that Fespaco has unveiled its selection committee.