Yaaba

A small village in Burkina Faso. Ten-year-old Bila makes friends with an old woman who lives alone outside the village. Everyone calls her a witch and keeps away from her; Bila calls her Yaaba, grandmother. When his cousin Nopoko falls ill, what gets the girl back on her feet is the knowledge of the very woman nobody will go near. Idrissa Ouedraogo shot the film in the Mòoré language and in a real village. He does not set out to instruct anyone and does not judge tradition from outside; he simply shows how a community pushes someone out. The distance between how the children see her and what the adults are afraid of carries the whole film. It won the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes in 1989 and the special jury prize at FESPACO.