Burkinabe filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo, a towering figure in African cinema, died Sunday at the age of 64, the national film makers guild announced in a statement. Ouedraogo produced or directed some 40 films from the 1980s to the 2000s, set in Africa and often exploring the strains between modern urban and traditional rural lifestyles.

In 1990, he won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival for "Tilai", an African version of a Greek tragedy about family dishonour, which is set in a village and is probably his best-known work internationally. He died at 0530 GMT of an unspecified illness in a hospital in the capital Ouagadougou, the union of filmmakers said.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2018