When the corona virus pandemic hit this country more than a year ago, it was considered a quickly passing phenomenon that would leave its place for business as usual. As the weeks and months ground on, the pandemic grew from something that looked like a momentary challenge into a new normal, killing many people and reducing many others to physical and psychological damages that are getting deeper rather than healing. Among the hardest hit groups of people everywhere in the world, are artists who made their living entertaining art lovers on the stages, galleries, theatres, or cinema halls. They also had their share of victims of the pandemic itself.
Most Ethiopian artists who earn their living from their creativity are not professional ones with long years of experience who have enough financial and resources that could help them withstand the devastating impacts of these hard times. Most of them call themselves professional musicians, dancers, actors or movie producers but they have not developed the financial muscles that would help them resist the hard blows of life such as the ongoing pandemic and its negative fallouts.
Most of them call themselves professional artists mostly as a matter of boosting their ego while they lack the financial resources their contemporaries enjoy in more developed countries. Ethiopian artists must be some of the neediest people around even by African standards. Even those who made it relatively well did so thanks to occasional donations from philanthropist art lovers. A few of them enjoyed massive marketing bonanzas in better times. The rest are almost outright paupers, unable to live from one day to the other as the pandemic continues to destroy their meager savings.
A famous singer was recently having an interview with a local FM radio and the first question he was asked was how he is surviving these hard times since many clubs have closed their doors or are not operating at pre-corona levels. The singer did not mince his words. He simply answered by saying that he has so far survived on his savings and had nothing left in his bank account for the coming days and weeks.
There are a few unions particularly focused on artists. There are unions of musicians, writers, filmmakers…etc. but they are financially so weak that they cannot even cover the expenses to cover the day-to-day costs of running these organizations. The government has never set aside financial subsidies to encourage their creativity even in normal times and support their members in times of hardships such as the present crisis.
That was a very disconcerting statement indeed given the fact that a year or so ago, artists in Ethiopia and in the capital Addis Ababa in particular were among those who enjoyed a pretty good life. Movie houses were booming, audience attendance was rising and many clubs opened their doors from dusk to dawn and music festivals were taking place every other week. The singer in question is no doubt among the luckier ones because many people loved his works and earned relatively better incomes. Now he is on his way to join the army of the unemployed and the fast vanishing species of formerly famous artists. His prospect for survival the worsening times is alarming indeed, to say the least.
This has a snowball effect on the creativity and production of artists as well as music studios that are running out funds to invest in the production of new albums. In the pre-corona time, music producers and composers were so busy that their clients had to wait for many months before they could release their albums. The market was crowded with new releases and music lovers had many albums to choose from and enjoy themselves. Now, all that has gone or reduced to a faint shadow of the pre-corona period. The death of Elias Melka, the foremost young composer the country has so far produced a few months before the outbreak of the pandemic, was indeed a bad omen of the tragedy that befell the country right after his death.
The same is true for filmmakers who did well in the pre-corona times but now find themselves in doldrums. In fact, they are faring worse than musicians. The film industry is making baby steps towards growth when the pandemic hit hard. A few actors and producers were thriving at that time. Some of them seemed to have a sixth sense and changed their career and built hotels or resorts rather than investing in the film industry whose revival is not yet in sight. Foreign film companies do not yet have a tradition of involvement in local film production. Co-productions are virtually unknown and there is no foreign investment in the film business. Domestic investment is limited and those who have money to invest do not know the business environment or they are biased against it thinking that it is not the right place to pump in money because they think the risks are high.
The global and domestic prospects for a quick revival of the industry are apparently poor if we go by a recent assessment published in Wikipedia. According to this source, “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on the film industry in 2020, mirroring its impacts across all arts sectors. Across the world and to varying degrees, cinemas and movie theaters have been closed, festivals have been cancelled or postponed, and film releases have been moved to future dates or delayed indefinitely. Due to cinemas and movie theaters closing, the global box office has dropped by billions of dollars, streaming has seen a significant increase in popularity and the stock of film exhibitors has also dropped dramatically.
Many blockbusters originally scheduled to be released since mid-March 2020 have been postponed or canceled around the world, with film productions also halted. This, in term, has created openings for independent cinema productions to receive wider exposure.” The situation here might be even worse than in the developed countries where there are better opportunities or options for survival under the pandemic and its destructive effects. Even if the corona virus were to disappear tomorrow its impacts on the film industry are believed to be long-lasting, According to some sources, the end of the pandemic “does not mean everything will go back to normal, however. Many industry standards for health and safety will likely remain permanent, and shoots will take more time and cost more money than they did a year ago.
For example, film investor and independent producer Justin Begnaud was getting ready to begin production on a $4 million film when the pandemic effectively ended productions globally. As new guidelines came out, Begnaud was able to estimate the cost of producing his film. He even modified the script to increase social distancing and cut costs. In the end, the guidelines still added about $1 million to the production, or a 25% increase in cost. The studio underwriting his film had approved the $4 million, but he was having difficulty getting an increased budget. “The movie is probably not going to get made, despite big cuts to production costs and a green light from studio,” Begnaud said in an interview.”
In Ethiopia, even though the pandemic has impacted the infant film industry, there are a few independent producers who are trying to make movies with all the risks involved. The situation is somehow similar in all African countries with few exceptions where governments are trying to rescue the creative industries from total collapse. Kenya is a good example. According to a recent story in Africa Report magazine, “more and more African governments are recognizing the value of African creative industries and including these sectors in national economic and development plans. Nairobi-based HEVA, Africa’s first fund dedicated to creative and cultural goods and services, raised between $200,000 and $500,000, as of January 2019, in each of its three cycles since 2015. It has invested in 40 businesses and directly supported over 8,000 creative practitioners.”
It may be time for government in Ethiopia to support the creative industries so that they could ward off the devastating impacts of the pandemic as well as save practitioners from growing pauperization. However, how and when this can be done is anybody’s guess
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald June 2/2021
