Gaston Kaboré, Burkina Faso

Born in Burkina Faso in 1951, Gaston Kaboré became interested in how Africa was portrayed abroad during his studies in history in Paris. This led him, in 1974, to study cinematography at the Ecole Superieure d'Etudes Cinematographiques. After returning to Africa, Kaboré was made director of the Centre National du Cinema and taught at the Institut African d'Education Cinematographique.

Kaboré's first feature, Wend Kuuni (1982) was a breakthrough for African cinema, notable for the way in which it translated African oral tradition to the screen. His next film, the documentary Props sur le cinema (Reflections on the cinema, 1986), featured directors Souleymane Cissé from Mali and Mauritanian director Med Hondo discussing the problems facing filmmakers on the continent.

Kaboré produced his second feature, Zan Boko, in 1988 and followed this with a short documentary on a celebrated Burkinabe singer and dancer. Kaboré contributed to the BBC's Developing Stories, a series of six films by talented filmmakers from the developing world focusing on environmental and developmental issues. He offered Rabi (1993), which won the first prize for young people's films at the Okomedia International Ecological Film Festival.Kaboré's international recognition was further marked by his participation in the film Lumière et compagnie (1995) in which 40 directors were asked to make a short film with the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumiere Brothers.

His most recent feature Buud Yam (1997) won the Grand Prize at the FESPACO film festival in 1997. Kaboré currently runs his own film school, Imagine, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

We are delighted and honoured to welcome Gaston Kaboré to Africa in Motion 2008. We will screen three of his films on Fri 24 Oct and Sat 25 Oct as a retrospective of his work - Zan Boko, Wend Kuuni and Buud Yam.