The Koro of Bakoro, the castaways of Faso
by Simplice Ganou
BURKINA FASO, France - 2017 - 78 MINUTES
synopsis
Polo has been roaming Ouagadougou since childhood. Today he has grown up. At 29, he is the oldest in a group of young people who live on odds and ends. Plunged raw into a reality as rough as the tar that the streets of Ouaga lack, The Koro of Bakoro, the Survivors of Faso is above all a view from the inside. Simplice Herman Ganou knows the streets where they live as well as Polo and his gang, trying to sell custom “Bakoro” recycled solar lamps. He had already dragged his camera to this corner, signing Bakoroman (2012) a few years ago, a portrait of street teenagers. A few years have passed… And the question that arises now is no longer that of survival, but that of identity. In the street, we are nobody. “If I had died in the revolts of 2014, I would have been put in the mass grave”, the quest that punctuates the film is therefore identity. Polo leaves for the village in search of his birth certificate, like the metaphorical body of a Burkina Faso orphan since the death of Sankara and whose recent revolution leaves his children as shipwrecked.
Director
PLUG
PRODUCTION
Bilboquet Films
Princess M. Productions
ADV Productions
DIFFUSION
Not specified
PARTICIPATION
International organization of Francophonie
CNC
Rewards
In 2019: Africlap - Festival des Cinémas d'Afrique de Toulouse - Toulouse (France) - Selection
In 2018: Cerbère-Portbou Cinematographic Meetings - Cerbère (France) - Walter Benjamin Prize & Special Mention
In 2017: Traces de Vies - Clermont-Ferrand (France) - Selection “A sensitive world”
In 2017: Carthage Film Days - Tanit d'Or
In 2017: States General of documentary films - Lussas (France) - Docmonde
In 2017: Visions du Réel - Nyon (Switzerland) - Competition Section “Regard Neuf”