Introduction

In these relational historical determinations, consider the decolonizing mediation of the Pan-African Film & Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), the world's most important, inclusive, and consequential cinematic convocation of its kind. Since its formation in 1969, FESPACO's mission is, in principle, remarkably unchanged, though organizationally distressed, undercapitalized, and dependent. By examining its role as host to deliberations among filmmakers, film scholars, and critics alike in public conversation about the cultural politics and theory of cinema and its location and role in the development priorities of state governments, we are able to discern, particularly African cinema, as a national, continental, and increasingly, in its diasporic iterations, a global cultural formation. [...]FESPACO was the subject ofa panel at the 2019 Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference held in Seattle, Washington and featured in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of African Cinemas.1 Among publications, consider Manthia Diawaras chapter on FESPACO in African Cinema: Politics & Culture,2 Teresa Hoefert de Turéganos African Cinema and Europe: Close-Up on Burkina Faso,3 and Lindiwe Doveys Curating Africa in the Age of Film Festivals.4 Other substantial work on FESPACO appear in Mahir Şaul and Ralph A. Austens Viewing African Cinema in the TwentyFirst Century,5 Férid Boughedirs, African Cinema from A to Z,6 and essays and documents in other publications, including ones in this journal, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, as well as Claire Andrade-Watkinss, A Mirage in the Desert? [...]two sections, one devoted to FESPACO documents, the other three dossiers on the Paul Robeson Award Initative (PRAI), and the film training institutes ISIS-SE and Institut IMAGINE.