By James
Latham
L.A. has all kinds
of film festivals, a diversity comparable to the international scene. We know about Cannes and Toronto, but those
are only a few of the many festivals around the world contributing to film
culture. For example, I’ve been speaking
recently with Yirgashewa Teshome, who runs the Ethiopian International Film Festival.
Here is part of our conversation:
James Latham: For
nearly a decade, the Ethiopian International Film Festival (ETHIOIFF) has
screened a lot of films. How does your
festival serve the local or regional community?
Yirgashewa Teshome: Each
year, during a week in November, we screen about 100 films, including features,
shorts, fiction, documentary, animation, experimental, classics, and
contemporary films mostly from Ethiopia and Africa. We invite filmmakers to discuss their work,
give some of them juried awards, and organize workshops and seminars—all free to
the public. We celebrate Ethiopian and African
cinema, building greater understanding and appreciation of indigenous work,
including showing that there is no simple “Ethiopian” or “African” cinema, but
instead diverse people, styles, sensibilities, issues, and genres. We embrace the range of African cultures and,
in doing so, broaden our viewers’ horizons by helping them to understand other
people, to see their commonalities and differences.
We also
welcome films from around the world. We
are interested in many universal subjects, for example, films about women or
youth. Or films that show new production
techniques; or how to get the most from limited resources. Overall, we work to represent our people,
support them, and dialogue with them as well as the international community.
JL: Being in the
capital city of Addis Ababa—home to over 100 embassies, the African Union, and
the UN Economic Commission for Africa—your festival has a broad scope. How does the ETHIOIFF fit in with the arts,
culture, and film environment in Ethiopia?
How do people tend to see movies in Ethiopia? Amid so much poverty, are movies mostly a
luxury?
YT: To help achieve
our broad scope, and make the most out of our location, we have gradually
brought on board various embassies and international organizations. For the last eight years, our program has
included EMBASSY DAYS, in which about a dozen countries screen their own films and
have discussions with the film professionals and audiences. We also have worked with UNICEF and UNESCO in our
COMMUNITY FOCUS program, which raises awareness of the concerns and aspirations
of various groups in our community. ETHIOIFF
takes place at different venues throughout Addis Ababa, partly of necessity,
but also to help reach the widest possible audiences.
Though poverty
is a problem, it has not stifled our country’s long cultural traditions. Ethiopia is a
country full of artists, traditional as well as modern, working in diverse mediums. For centuries, the large Christian population
has been a major part of our arts and culture landscape, with churches
providing plays, music, dance, and other forms of expression. Ethiopians love films, especially when
they portray us openly and honestly. And
while filmmaking and viewing have been less accessible practices compared to
traditional arts, things are improving as technologies get better and cheaper.
JL: Could you tell me
about some recent African films you screened that were especially compelling
for your audiences?
YT: Two recent award winning
films that we sent to our partner festivals in the USA and Uganda are METENI and
HERMLA. The first is a short documentary-drama
about a young Afar woman named Meteni, who has two small children and whose
work is truly inspirational. The Afars
are nomads who move with their herds through northern Ethiopia, one of the
hottest regions on earth, and the film shows Meteni at work—dismantling her
small house, moving it and all the family’s possessions by camel to a new camp
site, grinding maize by hand, milking goats, and carrying water for miles in scorching
heat. When she becomes pregnant, she
continues her punishing workload with disastrous consequences. This compelling film shows the hard lives of
many rural Ethiopian women, as well as their strength and resilience.
HERMLA is a
feature film based on a true story that happened in Addis Ababa and got the
attention of all the Ethiopian media organizations, the government, and even Human
Rights Watch. The film is about a man
named Kassahun, whose obsession for a woman named Hermla grows so that he becomes
violent towards her and her family, with tragic results. This powerful film combines themes of loneliness,
love, obsession, acceptance, human rights, injustice, and murder.
JL: Could you
describe another successful film that is very different, such as a musical or
comedy—that helps illustrate the diversity of your programming?
YT: YEWONDOCH GUDAI (or
“BOYS AFFAIR”) is a romantic comedy feature about a group of young friends (five
boys, one girl) who work together and face different social problems with each
other and their boss. These interactions
are funny and show the characters thinking about beauty, money, love
relationships, and other experiences they (and many of us) face. It was a very popular film, especially with
young people, and led to a sequel.
JL: When I was in
Ethiopia about five years ago, the most visible advertising image was for Coca
Cola. Do Hollywood movies have a
similarly big presence on local screens?
How does the Ethiopian public tend to respond to them?
YT: The presence of Hollywood
films in Ethiopia is tiny, partly because there are relatively few traditional screening
venues. In Addis Ababa, there are about
15 commercial movie theaters and another half dozen run by government
organizations; Hollywood films screen in only two theaters. New media technologies have expanded our access
to Hollywood films, and the public has responded favorably to some of them,
such as TITANIC. But I cannot say there
is strong demand, partly because few Hollywood films depict Africa at all, and
even fewer depict it well. Ironically, Americans
and Europeans have made the most films about Africa as well as the least
accurate ones—portraying the continent as an exotic land inferior to the West, lacking
in so many ways. Even today, Western media
images rarely do justice to Africa, continuing to portray it as a place “to be
pitied, worshipped, or dominated,” as Binyavanga Wainaina writes in his
brilliant satire HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA. This is a big reason why we have to support
our own filmmakers, to get their works seen both in and outside of Africa.
JL: What are some of your
festival's greatest challenges or needs?
YT: Running
any international film festival is a daunting task, especially in places like Ethiopia.
The very concept of such a festival,
along with its many parts—films from many places, different screening venues,
participating filmmakers, various programs, special commissioned cultural
projects—all of this is hard to explain to people who’ve never experienced such
things. The government, our sponsors,
volunteers, audiences—all required some learning about what exactly we’re
doing, how, and why.
Like many
festivals, we’re understaffed and underfunded, relying heavily on volunteers
and donations. We have the added
challenge of being in a poor country.
Addis Ababa is a modern city with cars, hotels, and other conveniences, but
also with real problems, such as unreliable electricity and Internet service. Fortunately, we’ve had some good support from
local businesses, but, unfortunately, there is no local government support (such
as funding) for film production and culture—so we’ve had to be very resourceful.
JL: What are your
relationships with other festivals or film organizations outside Ethiopia?
YT: We have several
relationships that mostly involve exchanges of films, professionals, and information
so we can support each other. We have
been doing this with the New York African Film Festival, the International
Panafrican Film Festival in Cannes, the Afrika Film festival in Belgium, and
the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival in Uganda. As we are planning to develop short film and youth-oriented
screenings, this year we established a similar partnership with the National Film
Festival for Talented Youth, in Seattle, Washington and the TAOS Shortz Film
Fest, in New Mexico. They will send us best-of
films to screen, and we’ll send them selected Ethiopian films. These relationships are flexible,
sustainable, and mutually beneficial.
JL: Are the films
you’re sending to NFFTY about youth, or made by them? What opportunities are there in Ethiopia for
young people to make films?
YT: They’re about
them; very few Ethiopian youth make films.
This is a main reason we have our youth-oriented screening section and relationship
with NFFTY—to encourage our young aspiring filmmakers by showing things that
are personally important to them; and to provide a more accurate and complete
image of African youth to those outside of Africa.
JL: Can you tell me
more about what you’re doing with the American film festivals? What other kinds of organizations or people
would you most like to connect with in the U.S.?
YT: Our relationships
with the American festivals basically involve exchanging films as well as professionals
and promoting each other in our publicity materials. The professional exchanges go both ways, as
needed. Whenever we want professional
people to give specialized training, seminars, public lectures, etc. we go first
to our partner festivals. Likewise, we
provide our own expertise for them, such as person who can speak or present
papers about Ethiopian films.
Regarding other types of organizations, we are open to various possibilities for collaboration. For partnerships, we would like to connect with film festivals that have common interests with our own. We’re also interested in TV outlets, online markets, print media, arts and cultural organizations, community groups, schools, or theatres interested in screening Africa-related films. Financially, our needs include support for the festival and its programs, for travel to or from Africa, and for things like publishing our annual program / catalog. As a service to our community, we believe our screenings should be free and open to the public, which unfortunately deprives us of box-office revenue.
We are always
connecting with film people interested in coming to Ethiopia or Africa, whether
as a place to show films or make them. Ethiopia
has a production-friendly climate, with warm and sunny weather year round, diverse
geography, a stable political environment, and low costs. The MGM production SHAFT IN AFRICA is one of
the best known Hollywood films set in Ethiopia, with a largely local cast. We have equipment and trained professionals,
as Ethiopia produces some 100 feature-length films a year. (Distribution of indigenous films is a big frustration,
something we help to resolve by giving some exposure locally and through
outside organizations.)
JL: As a last word,
is there anything else you’d like to mention?
YT:
Most people in
the world know little about Africa, much less Ethiopia, and we are working to
change that. We’re committed to promoting
Ethiopian culture locally and around the world, and glad to help anyone in this
area, whether it’s providing access to films, filmmakers, information, or other
resources. For anyone working on film
publications, studies, conferences, or other activities—we’re happy to help. Please feel free to contact me anytime at www.ethioiff.com.
Thank you so
much for the interview!
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