On Saturday, August 2, 2025, Citiplex 12 in Newark, New Jersey, hosted a special screening of Katanga: The Dance of the Scorpions, in the presence of several prominent members of the Burkinabè and African diaspora. Among them was the Consul General of Burkina Faso in New York, Mrs. Estelle Segda/Gando, as well as community leaders, association presidents, and cultural figures committed to promoting African cinema abroad.
The event was organized by Yennega Movies, under the leadership of young Burkinabè filmmaker Boukary Tiemtoré. Already known for bringing Bienvenue à Kikideni to audiences in the United States, and for directing films such as Le Rêve Américain de Malika and Le Regret Fatal, Tiemtoré has positioned himself as an important cultural bridge for Burkinabè cinema in America. His work is not only about showing films. It is about creating spaces where African stories can travel, meet their diaspora, and claim their rightful place in international cultural conversations.
A Political Tragedy Rooted in Shakespeare and Burkinabè Imagination
Directed by Dani Kouyaté, Katanga: The Dance of the Scorpions won the prestigious Étalon d’or de Yennenga at FESPACO 2025. Freely inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the film transposes the tragedy of ambition, betrayal, and moral collapse into an African political universe. Shot in black and white and performed in Mooré, the film unfolds in the fictional kingdom of Ganzurgu, where power is sacred, fragile, and dangerous.
After a failed conspiracy, King Pazouknaam appoints his cousin Katanga as head of the army. But under the influence of his wife Pougnéré, played with remarkable force by Hafissata Coulibaly, Katanga assassinates the king and seizes the throne. What follows is not simply the story of a man becoming king. It is the slow descent of a soul into paranoia, brutality, and spiritual isolation.
The film explores universal themes with striking intensity: the hunger for power, betrayal, guilt, fear, and the silence that grows around tyrants. Katanga’s tragedy is not only that he kills to rule. It is that, in eliminating those still brave enough to tell him the truth, he gradually loses contact with reality and with his own humanity. By the time his wife dies, he has become so hollowed out by power that he envies those still capable of crying.
The Prophecy: Destiny or Temptation?
At the heart of the film lies a disturbing prophecy: “You will be king, or you will die.” Spoken by the diviner, those words enter Katanga’s mind like a spark that will soon become a fire. The prophecy gives no date, no condition, no moral instruction. It simply places him between two extremes: power or death.
This is where the film becomes more than a political drama. It becomes a philosophical meditation. Is Katanga a man trapped by destiny, merely fulfilling what had already been written? Or is he a man who chooses evil and later hides behind fate to escape responsibility? The film leaves that tension alive, and that is part of its strength.
If the prophecy was truly the expression of a legitimate destiny, then why do the guardians of tradition, the sacred masks descending from the forest, eventually rise against him? Why do they speak of usurpation if he was only walking a path already traced by the invisible world? Perhaps the prophecy was not a sentence, but a mirror. Perhaps it did not create Katanga’s downfall. It simply revealed what was already inside him. He was not destroyed by destiny alone. He was destroyed by thirst, by ambition, and by the belief that power could be seized without consequence.
Women at the Center of Power and Resistance
One of the most powerful dimensions of Katanga: The Dance of the Scorpions is the central role given to women. They are not decorative figures in the background of a male tragedy. They are at the heart of the drama, the temptation of power, and the moral resistance that eventually rises against tyranny.
Pougnéré is the first force that changes the course of the kingdom. Manipulative, cynical, and fiercely ambitious, she embodies the seduction of absolute power. Through her, the film shows how ambition can become detached from compassion, from loyalty, and from the human cost of political conquest. She does not simply push Katanga toward the throne. She pushes him toward the abyss.
Image source: Infos Sciences Culture
But the film does not reduce women to manipulation or ambition. Other female figures carry a completely different moral power. One mother refuses exile and refuses to kneel before the tyrant. Her dignity is non-negotiable. She chooses death over submission, and in doing so, she becomes one of the film’s most haunting figures of courage.
Then come the women of the people, led by Soubila, the widow of Bougoum, Katanga’s former brother-in-arms and intimate friend, who is murdered with chilling cruelty. Armed with brooms, the women take to the streets to symbolically sweep away evil. Their gesture is simple, almost domestic, yet deeply political. They awaken consciences. They open the path to revolt. They prepare the fall of the regime.
When the authorities order soldiers to shoot, the soldiers hesitate. In front of them are not abstract protesters. They see their mothers, their aunts, their grandmothers, the women who gave life and who now stand as the last moral barrier against death. The soldiers disobey. They choose humanity over blind obedience.
In that moment, one is reminded of the words of Captain Thomas Sankara: “A soldier without political and ideological training is a potential criminal.” In Katanga, that moral training does not come through a classroom or a military doctrine. It comes through the gaze of women, through the courage of mothers, and through the memory of a people who still know the difference between authority and tyranny.
A Cinema of Beauty, Memory, and Political Warning
Beyond the strength of its story, Katanga is visually fascinating. The artistic direction is carefully crafted, blending tradition and modernity with intelligence and restraint. The black-and-white cinematography gives the film a timeless quality, as if the tragedy could belong to the past, the present, or any society where power becomes intoxicated with itself.
The costumes, hairstyles, lighting, and symbolic settings all contribute to a world that feels both deeply Burkinabè and universally readable. The film carries the soul of Burkinabè cinema: theatrical, spiritual, political, and rooted in oral tradition. It also benefits from a remarkable cast, with performances marked by precision, intensity, and emotional discipline. Even in the middle of such a grave subject, moments of humor appear, reminding us of Dani Kouyaté’s artistic intelligence and his understanding of life’s complexity.
Katanga is not simply a tragedy brought to the screen. It is a mirror held up to Africa, to humanity, and to power itself. It asks what happens when leaders confuse authority with ownership, loyalty with silence, and destiny with entitlement. It reminds us that tyranny does not begin only with violence. It often begins with the inability to hear the truth.
Why This Screening Mattered
The Newark screening mattered because it was more than a cultural event. It was an act of transmission. For the Burkinabè diaspora, seeing such a film on American soil was a reminder that our stories do not have to remain confined to our borders. They can travel. They can speak to the world. They can enter international spaces without losing their language, their symbols, or their soul.
In bringing Katanga to audiences in the United States, Yennega Movies helped create a bridge between homeland and diaspora, between African cinema and global spectatorship, between cultural memory and contemporary political reflection. This kind of initiative is necessary because African cinema is not secondary cinema. It is not cinema waiting for permission. It is cinema with its own intelligence, its own rhythm, and its own power to disturb, educate, and elevate.
Dani Kouyaté has given us a dense, beautiful, and necessary film. A work rooted in Burkinabè culture but open to the world. A film about power, but also about conscience. A film about tragedy, but also about resistance. A film that reminds us that the fall of tyrants is not always triggered by armies or speeches. Sometimes, it begins when the people, and especially the women, refuse to keep kneeling.
Thanks to Yennega Movies for offering this cinematic journey on American soil. Initiatives like this remind us that Burkinabè cinema has not said its last word. It watches. It remembers. It speaks. And sometimes, it confronts us.
