South African director Zola Maseko’s Drum, a film set amid the jazz clubs and bars of 1950’s Johannesburg has won the top prize, at Africa’s premier film festival, Fespaco 2005 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Drum depicts Sophiatown of the 1950's, the breeding ground for resistance, music, love, laughter and the fun loving, hard-drinking philanderer, Henry Nxumalo, a reporter on the escapist magazine, Drum.

Nxumalo's enterprising reportage leads him into direct conflict with South Africa’s apartheid machinery with fatal consequences.

Maseko was awarded the Etalon d'Or de Yennenga or the Golden Stallion of Yennenga, and a cash prize of 10 million CFA francs ($20,000) at the end of the week long film festival.



Second prize went to the Moroccan film, “La Chambre Noire, a film about the tortures and extra judicial imprisonment in 1970s Morocco.

La Chambre Noire won second prize

It was directed by Hassan Benjelloun and is based on eal events inspired by the book "The Black room" written by Jaouad Mdidech.

Tasuma Le Feu, a comedy by Burkinabe director Kollo Sanou carried the third proze.

It tells the story of an elderly ex – serviceman, Tasuma, who fought for France but was still waiting for his pension years later.

Fed up with waiting Tasuma, holds the pensions administrator hostage and forces him to dictate a letter to French president General Charles de Gaulle – who unknown to Tasuma is long dead.

The three films were among the twenty short listed feature films, in competition at this year’s film festival.

Tasuma won third prize

Drum is only the second English language film to have won the grand prize at the African film festival since Heritage Africa by Ghana’s Kwaw Ansah won the award in 1989.

South Africa’s participation at this year’s festival had raised high expectations and many observers will not be surprised that Drum, which is one of four South African entries on the shortlist had won.

Another South African film on the shortlist, Zulu Love Letter directed by Ramadan Suleman won the European Union prize.