The festival aims to highlight the best of African cinema

The films were a mixed bag. Some brilliant, some so-so, and some very weak.

The top prize went to Ali Zaoua, a film by the French-Moroccan director, Nabil Ayouch. It's about Moroccan street children, played by street children, and follows their search for dignity amid squalor.

There was also a new film by the man regarded as the father of African cinema, the great Senegalese director and writer, Sembene Ousmane.

His film - Faat Kine - looks at the changing role of women in Senegal, and Africa. He no longer competes for prizes at this festival, but he always comes with a new film, and is the presiding spirit at Ouagadougou.

International acclaim?

Then there's the up-and-coming Egyptian director, Khaled El Hagar, who's lives in Britain. His "Room to Rent' is about the struggles of a young Egyptian to stay in the UK.

It's a sharply-observed film, comic and moving in turn. It could be a big hit after its release in 25 countries in May.

But the most gripping movie? Well, that has to be another entrant from the category known as the African diaspora. This time by a Haitian director, Raoul Peck, a man who lived for many years in Zaire and who has served in his own country as Minister of Culture.

Ousmane Sembene's film champions women and challenges male traditions

But it was compelling for two reasons. Firstly, it vividly recreated the drama of Lumumba's time in power, showing the international actors working to overthrow him, particularly the Belgians and the Americans.

Burkinabe support

But the main focus was on the local players - Kasavubu, Tshombe and Mobutu. The film captured the dynamic between these self-serving politicians and the radical, headstrong Lumumba. His fate seemed quickly sealed in the fierce cold-war climate of the early 1960s.

The audience at this film was not the usual international mix. I saw it on a big screen at the national stadium in Ouagadougou, and ordinary Burkinabes turned up in their hundreds to see it.

And they loved the film, voicing approval and disapproval at different moments, as the events of 40 years ago came back to life.

Parallel histories

The festival also provides much needed revenue for local traders

He renamed Upper Volta Burkina Faso - Land of the Incorruptible - and he began to shake up its bureaucracy, aiming to lift the country out of poverty.

But Sankara was killed after just a few years in power, by his own allies, in a case that has eery parallels with the Congo and Lumumba's overthrow by his army chief, Mobutu.

In the national stadium in Ouagadougou on that hot African night, it was apparent that ordinary Burkinabes were drawing those parallels, as they roared their disapproval at those who betrayed Lumumba.

These ordinary citizens of Burkina Faso, including some who ply the streets trying to sell curios to tourists, clearly understand their history very well - and appear to have a keen sense of what their country might have become.