Burkina Faso / 1991 / 72mins / Drama, Family / Mooré

When Noufou, nine-year-old Rabi’s father, nearly hits a turtle on the road, he destroys his wife’s pottery on the way to the market. To jokingly explain the mess to his wife, he brings the turtle home. Rabi immediately adopts the turtle as a pet and learns a valuable lesson about freedom and nature. An insightful fable of childhood, Rabi is powerfully influenced by the great West African storytelling traditions. As Kaboré says, “Respect for nature is inseparable from the world’s cultural perceptions, from education in the fundamental values of life, from philosophy and from imagination and mythology.”

Gaston Kaborè

Gaston Kaboré was born in 1951 in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. He trained as a cinematographer in Paris at the École Supérieure d’Études Cinématographiques (ESEC) and completed a degree in history at the Sorbonne. He served as the Secretary General of the Federation of Pan African Filmmakers (FEPACI) from 1985-1997. In addition to numerous documentaries, his films include the features Wend Kuuni (God’s Gift – 1982) winner of the César Award for Best French Language Film in 1985; Zan Boko (1988), winner of the Silver Tanit, Carthage Film Festival 1988; and Rabi (1991), winner the Bronze Award, Carthage Film Festival 1992. Rabi was shown at the first New York African Film Festival in 1993. His 1997 film Buud Yam was in competition at Cannes and went on to win the Grand Prize at FESPACO. Gaston Kaboré is also the founder of IMAGINE, a cultural center in Ouagadougou that offers residencies and workshops for African artists. Learn More