1
OU LE CERCLE DE DANSE, BURKINA FASO
Background and History of the School
In the days
following independence, the first training that was available for African film
and sound engineers was to be found in the EU or Russian schools or, more often
than not, simply through learning on the job during film shoots. This was the
case until 1976 when the African Institute for Cinematographic Studies (INAFEC)
was created. INAFEC was the only training institution that existed in the French-speaking
sub-Saharan Africa. More than 200 professionals from the sub-region were trained
by this institute before financial difficulties lead to its closure in ’86.
Conscious
of its historic responsibility for the development of African cinema, the film
making community of Burkina Faso organized in July 1997, in Ouagadougou, a major
forum on the future of the industry. During the forum, the Burkina Faso film
professionals made a number of proposals, one of which was a plan to re-launch
the cinema and audiovisual arts through an ambitious programme for training
in audiovisual skills, called the Programme de la Formation aux Métiers
de l’Image et du Son (PROFIS).
Today PROFIS has the ambition to offer the youth of the continent the opportunity
and means to develop technical and artistic skills for both the film and the
audtiovisual industries.