Hate Speech And Hypocrisy Skewered In African Movie Satire

Traditional chiefs, religious leaders, surreal bureaucrats, the police... no aspect of Burkinabe society escapes mockery in "Duga", a comedy screened Wednesday at Africa's top film festival.

The film -- unofficially titled "The Scavengers" in English -- uses a corpse that nobody wants to bury as the launch pad for a satire on hate-mongers, pen-pushers, and humbugs.

It is one of 20 feature films competing for the top prize at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco).

"False religious prophets spread fear and hate speech, and this leads to violence," said Abdoulaye Dao, a Burkinabe director who co-made the film with Herve Eric Lengani.

"Politicians let them get away with it because they know it will get them support. It's playing with fire. It happens in Burkina, in Mali and everywhere in Africa," he said, referring to the rise of jihadism.

The film follows Rasmane, a retired man who volunteers to do a job nobody wants -- that of burying a dead friend.

Touched by the plight of the man's widow and daughter, Rasmane wants to help out but soon comes up against a string of people who want to exploit the situation for their own gain.

At the same time, a young labourer finds an abandoned baby in a dump. He offers to take care of the child, but the authorities throw every obstacle in his way -- and even go so far as to accuse him of killing her mother.

"The two stories run alongside one another and come together at the end," says Dao, whose 2009 film "An Extraordinary Woman" was well-received at Fespaco.

"Life and death were two moments when communities used to come together, to cry and to heal. Nowadays, this solidarity is crumbling away."

'Cursed over the corpse!'

But in making the film, the directors encountered one nightmare after another, Dao revealed.

"The vehicle used in the film for transporting the body broke down all the time and also got stuck in the mud -- we had to haul it out with a tractor, which inspired one of the scenes," he says.

"And when we were filming in the forest, we had to move the equipment several times, just when everything was ready because there were snakes everywhere.

"Then it rained all the time. After a while, we began to wonder whether we were being cursed because of the corpse!"

Launched in 1969 and loosely modeled on the Cannes Film Festival, Fespaco provides an opportunity for African movie and TV professionals to network and pitch their work to clients in Europe, North America and beyond.

The week-long festival opened on Saturday for celebrations marking its 50th anniversary.

The golden stallion

Sixteen African countries are showcasing 165 films, documentaries and series.

The top prize -- the so-called "African Oscar" -- is the Golden Stallion of Yennenga, named after a mythical 12th-century warrior princess who founded the Mossi empire.

If "Duga" wins, Dao will be the first Burkinabe filmmaker to hoist the award in 20 years, after Gaston Kabore's "Buud Yam" in 1997.

Another Burkinabe in the running is Apolline Traore, whose "Desrances" portrays the courage of women caught in the post-electoral turmoil in Ivory Coast in 2010-11.

But a rumoured front-runner is the Kenyan film "Rafiki" by Wanuri Kahiu, which was temporarily banned in its home country last year because of its lesbian love theme.

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