Sacred Places

Camaroonian filmmaker Jean-Marie Téno IN PERSON
at Amherst Cinema

Sunday March 28  7:00pm only!
Special Admission: $5.00

The district of St. Leon in Ouagadougou, capital of the West African country of Burkina Faso, is a modest neighborhood tucked between the cathedral and two mosques.  It’s also the home of the biennial FESPACO (Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou), a showcase for the best achievements in African filmmaking for 40 years.  Here, SACRED PLACES explores the fight to survive and maintain one's dignity in a hostile environment through the lives of three characters: Jules Cesar, a djembé maker and player; Bouba, the video-club manager of a neighborhood movie salon that also serves as a praying place; and Abbo, a fifty year-old senior technician who decided to become a public letter writer.  Director Jean-Marie Téno composes a complex and profound meditation on the many paradoxes of today's Africa, not the least of which is the absence of African films in local distribution at a time of ubiquitous technological advances and access.

Director Jean-Marie Téno.  70 mins. NR