2004 Photo Contest, Arts and Entertainment, 2nd prize
Photographer

Stephan Zaubitzer

01 April, 2003

Customers gather outside Ciné-Oubri, the main venue during FESPACO, an African festival of arts and film. Ciné-Oubri can seat several hundred people. Open-air cinemas are a heritage of a once-flourishing film culture. The ten cinemas, all built to the same model but in different parts of the city, are venues for FESPACO. But the advent of 'Videodromes', halls equipped with DVD players and televisions screening American action movies, are posing a threat to the open-air cinemas. The cinemas are not economically viable, and are too expensive for the state to maintain, so the World Bank is pressing for their privatization.

About the photographer

Stephan Zaubitzer

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