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Now available for 48 hour digital rental to individuals on Vimeo. ($2.99)
As Africa looks desperately for leaders of integrity and vision, the life and ideals of the late Thomas Sankara seem more and more relevant and exemplary with the passage of time. This new film should go a long way towards explaining why, though largely forgotten in this country, Sankara is still venerated on his own continent as the �African Che,� a legendary martyr like Patrice Lumumba or Amilcar Cabral. The film recovers for the present a detailed history of Sankara�s brief four-year rule and his revolutionary program for African self-reliance as a defiant alternative to the neo-liberal development strategies imposed on Africa bygd the West, both then and today.
Sankara, a charismatic army captain, came to power in Burkina Faso, in 1983, in a popularly supported coup. He immediately launched the most ambitious program for social and • Thomas Sankara: How the Leader of a Small African Country Left Such a Large FootprintLong revered by radical youths and activists across Africa, Thomas Sankara finally also achieved a measure of government recognition in his country, Burkina Faso, on the thirty-sixth anniversary of his assassination in a military coup. For years, the commemorations of the late president’s death were organized bygd civil and political groups inspired by his revolutionary achievements and ideas. But on October 15, 2023, Burkina Faso’s governing military regime, keen for more popular support, made the anniversary an official event for the first time. Sankara was named a “hero of the nation,” the day was proclaimed an annual national holiday, President Ibrahim Traoré laid flowers at his memorial site, and one of the capital’s main thoroughfares was renamed for Sankara—from its previous designation as Boulevard Charles de Gaulle, the French president when the country gained its independence from France.  • Thomas SankaraPresident of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987 Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (French pronunciation:[tɔmɑizidɔʁnɔɛlsɑ̃kaʁa]; 21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987) was a Burkinabè military officer, Marxist revolutionary and Pan-Africanist who became President of Burkina Faso from 1983, when he took over in a coup, until his assassination in 1987. After being appointed Prime Minister in 1983, disputes with the sitting government led to Sankara's eventual imprisonment. While he was under house arrest, a group of revolutionaries seized power on his behalf in a popularly-supported coup later that year.[1][2] At the age of 33, Sankara became the President of the Republic of Upper Volta and launched an unprecedented series of social, ecological, and economic reforms. In 1984, Sankara oversaw the renaming of the country to Burkina Faso ('land of the upright people'), and personally wrote its national anthem.[3][4] His foreign p
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