Few movies have been made about jihadism in Africa and even fewer have focused on the plight of women at the hands of extremists.
But a slew of films showcased in the continent’s biggest movie festival could be a cinematic watershed.
“When people talk about terrorism, they don’t talk much about women,” said Apolline Traore, a director from the festival’s host country, Burkina Faso, which has suffered grievously from jihadism.
Traore’s feature-length “Sira,” which won the Silver Stallion of Yennenga award in the FESPACO festival that ended on Saturday, describes a 25-year-old woman who is abducted by jihadists and has to draw on courage and smartness to survive.
Traore said she wanted to haul women out of the typical image of victimhood and place them in the “major role… (they play) in the fight against terrorism”.
The director said she was inspired by meeting women whose lives had been turned upside-down by jihadists.
One example, she said, was a woman who with a bullet lodged in her shoulder had spent five days looking for shelter for herself and her two children.
Nafissatou Cisse, a Burkinabe actress who plays the lead role of Sira, said she had drawn on “the rage” of women caught in the jihadist nightmare.
More than 10,000 people have lost their lives in Burkina Faso since jihadists swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015 and more than two million people have fled their homes.
Around 40 percent of the country is controlled by the insurgents.
Making “Sira” was in itself a gruelling challenge.
After a massacre at Solhan in June 2021 that left 132 dead — the bloodiest single attack in the long-running jihadist campaign — the authorities declined to renew authorisation for filming “Sira” in Burkina’s deeply troubled north. (France24)