The festival’s grand prize, the prestigious Étalon d’or de Yennenga (Golden Stallion of Yennenga), was awarded to Katanga, la Danse des Scorpions (Katanga, The Dance of the Scorpions) (2024), written and directed by Burkinabé filmmaker Dani Kouyaté…
Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
The 29th edition of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) concluded on March 1, 2025, with numerous awards presented to films and filmmakers from across the continent in celebration of African filmmaking.
The festival’s grand prize, the prestigious Étalon d’or de Yennenga (Golden Stallion of Yennenga), was awarded to Katanga, la Danse des Scorpions (Katanga, The Dance of the Scorpions) (2024), written and directed by Burkinabé filmmaker, Dani Kouyaté, marking the host country’s first top prize win since it last took the Golden Stallion in 1997 for Gaston Kaboré’s Buud Yam (1997).
Katanga, la Danse des Scorpions, a political thriller inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth and filmed in black and white, captivated the jury and audiences alike, also winning the Audience Award, the Ecobank Foundation’s Sembène Ousmane Prize, the UEMOA Special Prize for feature-length fiction, the FDCT Special Prize, and the Paulin Soumanou Vieyra African Critics Prize.
Burkina Faso also benefited from other special awards, with Michel K. Zongo’s documentary, L’Homme qui Plante les Baobabs (The Man Who Plants Baobabs) (2024), winning the IAMGOLD Essakane SA Special Prize and the WaterAid Special Prize for Climate, Water and Sanitation in Africa, among others.
Burkina Faso’s Lala (2024) by Omar Sambasekou also took home the Ababacar Samb Makharam Prize of the City of Ouagadougou while Simplice Ganou’s short film, Kapital (2024), won the Sovereignty Prize.
The Democratic Republic of Congo was also well represented at the awards, with Congolese films and filmmakers raking in both jury and special awards. Nelson Makengo won the Silver Stallion in the feature documentary category for Tongo Saa (Rising up at Night) (2024); Derhwa Kasunzu’s Catcher (2024) won the Samba Félix N’diaye Prize for the best first or second feature-length documentary film; and Nails Man (2023), directed by Sheriya Twana, was awarded the Idrissa Ouedraogo Prize for Revelation. Nzonzing by Moimi Wezam received the Leyth Production Prize awarded to deserving feature films in post-production.
Several other filmmakers from other African countries were also rewarded for their excellence in various categories at the festival, including the other top prizes alongside the Golden Stallion.
The Étalon d’Argent de Yennenga (the Silver Stallion) was awarded to The Village Next to Paradise (2024), a Viennale winner and Cannes Film Festival nominee directed by Somali director Mo Harawe, while the Étalon de bronze de Yennenga (the Bronze Stallion) went to On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024), which previously won Zambian filmmaker, Rungano Nyoni, the Best Director award at Cannes.
Goodbye Julia (2023), a Sudanese film directed by Mohamed Kordofani, won Best Editing and Best Social Issue Award. L’Effacement (The Vanishing) (2024), directed by Algerian filmmaker, Karim Moussaoui, won in the Best Song category.
The Jury Prize for Animated Short Film was won by Senegalese director, Fatoumata Bathily for Les Aventures de Kady et Djudju (The Adventures of Kady and Djudju) (2024), while the Uemoa Prize for short documentary film went to another Senegalese director, Abdoul Aziz Basse, for 2002, Battle against Oblivion (2024).
Broken Drums by Togolese director Marcelin Bossou won the Nour-Eddine Saïl Prize, while Rwandan filmmaker, Myriam Uwiragiye Birara won the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Special Prize UNFPA for her film The Bride (2023), which explores the Rwandan custom of abducting women for marriage.
As one of Africa’s premier film festivals, FESPACO continues to serve as a beacon for the continent’s storytelling heritage, promoting filmmaking excellence and African cultural pride, with over two hundred films competing at the 2025 edition of the festival. FESPACO holds biennially and is expected to return in the first quarter of 2027.