After it was shut down in 2001, the Faso Fani textile factory in Koudougou, Burkina Faso’s third-largest city, was left to rot. It probably figures in the World Bank and IMF archives as one more piece of collateral damage, yet another write-off in a West African sideshow. Michel Zongo, who grew up in Koudougou, reopens the case of this legendary factory. He visits relatives and former employees, including his uncle, who once owned a much admired modern cult object thanks to Faso Fani: one of the first refrigerators in town. Zongo digs through radio and TV archives and pieces together the factory’s proud history, which produced so much more than just textiles. As a true local, however, Zongo is not focussed on the demise of his hometown, but rather discovers women in its courtyards who have begun to weave again – and men conversing beneath the trees. His film is an homage to a specifically African form of resistance in the face of the madness of globalisation, a visually powerful document of a revolt by energetic women and eloquent men. Out of necessity and conviction, they work out their own contemporary ideology of progress – with ingenuity and charm and without the IMF. (Dorothee Wenner)
Production: Cinédoc Films, Annecy; Diam Production, Ouagadougou; Perfect Shot Films, Berlin
Screenplay: Michel K. Zongo, Christophe Cognet
Camera: Michel K. Zongo
Cast: Rachim Naser Sanou
Format: DCP 1:1.78 (16:9), Colour
Running time: 90 min
Languages: French, Mooré
La sirène de Faso Fani
The Siren of Faso Fani
Michel K. Zongo
2015
