Idrissa Ouedraogo, 1954-2018

“[Our country] has lost a filmmaker of immense talent,” said Burkina Faso president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.

It is with heavy hearts that we at the BFC/A recognize and mourn the death of prolific Burkinabé filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo. He passed in Ouagadougou on February 18^th, 2018. His films focused on conflicts between traditional life and modernity in Burkina Faso, and across Africa.  Ouedraogo went to great lengths to create his films, and studied his craft in both Kiev and Paris.

A seminal work of Ouedraogo’s, Tilaï, premiered in 1990 at Toronto’s Festival of Festivals. The film later went on to win the Grand Prix award at Cannes the same year and the Étalon de Yennenga at FESPACO in 1991. The film casts a critical lens on familial honor with traditional African societies.

For members of the IU Bloomington community, Ouedraogo’s Tilaï is available to stream online through IU Libraries’ kanopy service. Tilaï and other works including Kini and Adams, Yam Daabo, and Samba Traoré are available for classroom and research viewing through the Black Film Center/Archive.  Some of the BFC/A holdings related to Ouedraogo from the Josef Gugler African and Middle Eastern Film Collection can be found online here, with additional materials available for research on-site.

~Elijah Pouges