Heremakono wins FESPACO 2003   Best actor and actress awards   Prize winners   Promised Land is a hit   South Africa stronger than ever   Nigerian film debut   What you said on Africa Live   FESPACO winner banned at home   Why not African actors?   Ivorians stay away from FESPACO   FESPACO 2003 Opening Ceremony   Congolese band get the party started   FESPACO prepares for lift off   FESPACO Director invites the stars		FESPACO'S flags are flying high in Ouagadougou Fespaco prepares for lift off With just a day to go before the grand opening ceremony, Ouagadougou is putting the finishing touches together for FESPACO 2003, the 18th edition of Africa’s most prestigious cultural event. At the FESPACO offices, film makers and members of the press are beginning to arrive and gather their glossy blue information packs and the accreditation badges that will allow them to enter the cinema halls. In the city’s Hotel de l’Independence, which has been more or less taken over by FESPACO, carpenters and technicians are dashing around constructing stalls for craft sellers and customising rooms for TV and radio crews. At the reception the phone is constantly ringing with requests from would-be guests, even though the hotel has been long since fully booked. There is a real feeling of anticipation in the air. The eve of the festival is when most of the well known film makers will arrive, because FESPACO has chartered a plane from Paris just in time for Saturday’s grand opening at the 4 July Stadium. As Burkina’s minister of Arts, Culture and Tourism, Mahamoudou Ouedraogo, has declared proudly: “there is no festival in the world, not even Cannes, where you will see an opening as spectacular as at FESPACO”.

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