CULTURE: GENERAL INFORMATION

Animist religion and magical practices are still partly followed, and traditional medicine is quite widespread. Music and dance are very lively: the most typical instruments are percussion and string instruments; in the capital Conakry numerous shows are held at the Center Culturel Franco-Guinéen and at the Palais du Peuple. Les Ballets Africains is a dance company, born in the sixties of the twentieth century, which performs at home but also performs several international tours. The festivals are linked to traditional activities: on the occasion of the Hunting Festival the men show their ability to aim; in May, in the village of Baro, during the Fish Festival, fish considered sacred are caught and released as a sign of good luck. The Potato Festival, in September, in the city of Mali-ville, it is the pretext for the farmers of the area to get together and celebrate together. The cuisine has no particular specialties: rice is eaten for breakfast and lunch, while the main dish for dinner is grilled meat. The most common sauces are based on peanuts and cassava leaves. Beer, quite widespread, is brewed in the country; coffee, a traditional drink, is similar to Italian espresso and is served already sweetened.

CULTURE: CINEMA

According to thefreegeography, Guinea was the first country in French-speaking black Africa to build an independent cinema, limiting the privileges of French distribution companies, nationalizing production, building full-cycle factories in Conakry. Among the first results there were feature films made by filmmakers trained abroad, such as Mohamed Lamine Akin, author of the first feature film, Le sergent Bakary Woolen (1968), Barry Sekoumar with the documentary Et vint la libertè (1969) and Mamadou Alpha Bada with another documentary, Guinèe-Guinè (1969). With the medium- length film Hier, aujourd’hui, demain (1968), Costa Diange won the Ivens Award at the Leipzig Film Festival. Even in the 1970s, national production was limited to documentaries and short films. The 1982 film Naïtou, by Moussa Kemoko Diakité, adaptation of a traditional theater opera, sung and danced by the Corps de Ballet of the Republic of Guinea. By Daouda Ketta, on the other hand, the short film Quelques pages de la vie de Toussaint-Louverà toure (1983). Moreover, production continued to remain limited even in the Eighties with few titles able to cross national borders. In 1990, only two films were exported, limited to the African market. The films Allah Tantou (1991), by director D. Achkar, and Dakan belong to the nineties (1997), by Mohamed Camara.