"The orphans of Sankara" honor their spiritual father
“The orphans of Sankara”, a film by Geraldine Berger.
© The Movies for a Day
Text by: Sophie Torlotin Follow
5 mins
On October 15, 1987, Captain Thomas Sankara, president of the young Republic of Burkina Faso, was assassinated.
As part of the commemorations is screened in Ouagadougou, at the Thomas Sankara memorial, the documentary "Les Orphelins de Sankara", by Geraldine Berger.
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This film, already screened and awarded in many festivals, including the Fespaco 2019 edition, looks back on an incredible and little-known story: the sending to Cuba of some 600 underprivileged children so that they can study useful disciplines and then come back to participate in development. from their country.
They are called Maryam, Athanase or Émilienne… They are one of the 600 Burkinabè children between 12 and 15 who left for Cuba in 1986, chosen by President Thomas Sankara on social criteria, coming from rural and disadvantaged families.
When a country sends its children to Cuba
Géraldine Berger, who discovered this story completely by chance, has these “orphans” who left to study medicine, agronomy, industrial welding or geology for several years in Cuba on the Island of Youth to testify.
"
I wondered what they had in mind before leaving their country to go and live 8,000 km away,
" recalls the documentary filmmaker.
“
How a country lets children go to Cuba, how their trip had been, because it's an extraordinary odyssey.
What had become of them
?
And what had they done with this Cuban epic
?
"
Les Orphelins de Sankara (extract) from Geraldine Berger on Vimeo.
Not without difficulty, in 2009, the French filmmaker ended up meeting those who refer to themselves as the “Orphelins de Sankara”.
She collected their testimonies and also found unpublished archives, a little yellowed, in particular these images of Thomas Sankara galvanizing the crowd in 1983: “
You don't have a school, you don't have hospitals, you don't. have no roads.
Alright, you'll get them
!
You will have them because from now on, you will all be rolling up your sleeves…
”
Sankara's legacy hidden, her forgotten orphans
Enough to mobilize these adolescents who go to study far from their families for years and do not find, when they return, the welcome they hope for.
It must be said that after the assassination of Sankara in 1987, the arrival of Blaise Compaoré to power in Burkina Faso and the end of the cold war, these Burkinabe emissaries on Cuban soil were forgotten, even voluntarily put aside.
"
You should know that the families of these children had no news, many moreover thought them dead following the assassination of Thomas Sankara,"
explains Geraldine Berger.
The reunion was not necessarily easy, the families had evolved and they themselves had grown up, they did not recognize each other, and they spoke mostly Spanish and no longer their dialect
”.
Thomas Sankara had imagined everything for their return, they should have had apartments, jobs.
But the change at the head of state sealed their fate: “
Their diplomas were not recognized,
deplores Geraldine Berger.
We told them
: "
your diplomas are written in Spanish, we have no one to translate them
", things as absurd as that
!
And those who were able to find a job were sent far to the borders, so that they could not come together and form a revolutionary group
”.
“The orphans of Sankara”, a film by Geraldine Berger.
© The Movies for a Day
Faithfulness to the ideals of youth
It must be said that, trained in Cuba, these young Burkinabè were able to follow a Marxist-Leninist doctrine and for some to follow a military initiation.
For years, this story was obscured, until the popular uprising of 2014.
Despite everything, Géraldine Berger finds no bitterness in interviewing those who have been put aside.
On the contrary, she is fascinated by the fidelity of all those she has met to their ideal of youth: “
They received a mission as a child and they remained loyal to it.
They are anxious to give back what has been given to them
: this idea of serving their country, helping development, beyond their family circle.
They really took Thomas Sankara as a spiritual father.
There is this extraordinary moment when Thomas Sankara visits them on the Isle of Youth a few months after their arrival, and he shook hands with each of them
!
Something very strong happened there.
It is a point of junction between the small and the big history.
And I found a photo from that time.
"
This documentary, awarded in numerous festivals, including that of the history of Pessac, contributes to this duty of memory.
Projected at the Thomas Sankara Memorial, it will be the subject of a debate for the first time.
►
To read also:
Why Thomas "Sankara is not dead"?
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