LibGuides: Africa and the African Diaspora: Featured Individual: Gaston Kaboré

Gaston Kaboré

Gaston Kaboré is an award-winning filmmaker from Burkina Faso. During his studies in history at the Sorbonne in Paris, he became attracted to the power and potential of film, leading him to study film after receiving his graduate degree in history. He is known for his French-language films that focus on themes honors his native region and critiquing the colonization of African territories. Kaboré's award-winning film Wend Kuuni is linked in the Featured Movie section and the Documentary and Feature Films section of this guide.

Watch Zan Boko by Gaston Kaboré

Zan Boko
Gaston Kaboré's film Zan Boko explores the conflict between tradition and modernity, a central theme in many contemporary African films, such as Keita and Ta Dona. It tells the poignant story of a village family swept up in the current tide of urbanization. In doing so, Zan Boko expertly reveals the transformation of an agrarian, subsistence society into an industrialized commodity economy. Zan Boko is also one of the first African films to explore the impact of the mass media in changing an oral society into one where information is packaged and sold. The film provides viewers with a unique opportunity to see our own televised civilization through the eyes of the traditional societies it is replacing.