Whether he makes a film on the historic Battle of Adwa or about the traumatic period in Ethiopian recent history under the military dictatorship of the Derg, Haile Gerima is dealing with his subject with tenacious passion and a rage against what he regards as historic injustices that need to be redressed, at least on the silver screen or in the conscience of the victims.
Haile Gerima’s scope and vision is usually larger than the size of the silver screen and his rage against the evils of all sorts of oppression so loud that it is sometimes deafening. Whether he deals with his country’s traumatizing experience under five years of occupation or exposes the injustices of oppression of black people in America by the white racist establishment, Haile Gerima displays not only artistry in portraying his characters but also realism in telling his stories.
“The work of him stems from the urgency of rage against all forms of oppression-whether colonial, feudal, racial, social or cultural. Exploring the present, the past and the relationship with the roots, to reconstruct the history of a people as a cure against alienation, his camera becomes a weapon of resistance and struggle for memory, and reminds us that the Cinema is a powerful tool to decolonize the minds, redefine the concept of hospitality and experience what Angela Davis has called global membership.”
Haile is obsessed with the black issue in America and elsewhere in the world that is still unresolved, festering beneath the headlines and catching public attention during open crises like the Black Lives Matter movement recently or the more structurally hidden white racism in America that is still buried within the white-dominated establishment as well as it promoters and abettor in the culture establishment going straight into Hollywood or in the aching conscience of the Klux Klan which is, according to Wikipedia, “an American white supremacist terrorist and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Catholics, Native Americans as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, and atheists.”
Haile Gerima’s voice is as powerful in criticism of the white dominated political establishment as it is in facing the immorality, brutality and entrenched racism of the white-dominated cultural establishment like the Hollywood which is also the soft power behind America’s quest for global domination. Haile did not go to Hollywood begging for the culture authorities there to help him produce films that do not appeal to their tastes. A few black American filmmakers like Spike Lee and others showed the way for making movies that appeal to the black audience and black history, i.e., the film about black rights leaders Malcolm X acted by Denzel Washington.
A similar motivation and his deep interest in black liberation have also inspired Haile Gerima to go for films that raise black issues such as Sankofa. The difference is that Hollywood agreed to produce Malcolm X because it knew that it will be a financial hit and refuse to turn its attention towards Haile because he is an African- American coming from a country renowned for its struggles against fascism during WW-II. The anti-fascism of Haile is not however confined to Ethiopia or Africa; it goes beyond conventional borders and appeals to the conscience of all black people everywhere in the world. Hollywood ignored Haile simply because his appeal is far-reaching and his vision borderless because oppression has no racial borders. As fascism is the highest expression of racial prejudice like its twin brother Nazism, Hollywood preferred to ignore Haile’s talent as a filmmaker.
As a rule, works of rebel artists are rarely accepted by the American white-dominated cultural establishment. Only a handful of filmmakers have escaped the institutionalized biases of Hollywood to attain global prominence. Charlie Chaplin is one of them who came to prominence at a time when the so-called “red scare’ or communist producers ran amok in every studio and directors like Alia Kazan were targeted by the league of so-called “anti-American activities” or anti-subversive campaigns conducted by the white cultural establishment. “A turning point in Kazan’s career came with his testimony as a witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952 at the time of the Hollywood blacklist, which brought him strong negative reactions from many friends and colleagues.”
Charlie Chaplin was also allegedly alienated for his political views that were associated with communism or socialism in the 1940s and 1950s, because in his films he sympathized what he called the common man. Because of this he was accused of harboring communist views. At one time he was asked whether he was a Bolshevik and his answer was straightforward: “I am an artist,” he said.
Although he is an outsider to Hollywood, Haile Gerima succeeded in shaping his own notion of independent African cinema as a revolutionary tool for the emancipation black people oppressed by racism, colonialism, neocolonialism and class bias. In this way, he is in league with another African filmmaker Sembene Ousman, often dubbed the father of African cinema, because he was “A revolutionary filmmaker and writer, who used both pen and camera to return African stories to African people. Battling racism, censorship and language barriers, he transformed Senegal’s and Africa’s cultural output.”
Haile Gerima is also a path breaking radical filmmaker and “A prominent figure of the cinema of Africa and African American, referring to independent cinema, the Ethiopian Gerima was among the founders of the “blacks of directors School of Los Angeles,” the fervent movement in the 70s experimented with new aesthetic, breaking through the narrative and production logic Hollywood. The work of him stems from the urgency of rage against all forms of oppression-whether colonial, feudal, racial, social or cultural.
The difference between Haile Gerima and Sembene Ousman is not so big because both of them struggled to promote the cause of the black people; both made films in English, French as well as in their respective African languages. In the case of Haile, his masterpiece Teza is made in Amharic but won prestigious international awards for its cinematography, artistry and theme. Thematically, Haile leans more heavily on history and the sufferings and triumphs of ordinary Africans or Ethiopians during some of the great historical crises of the 20th.
Haile is, “Exploring the present, the past and the relationship with the roots, to reconstruct the history of a people as a cure against alienation, his camera becomes a weapon of resistance and struggle for memory, and reminds us that the Cinema is a powerful tool to decolonize the minds, redefine the concept of hospitality and experience what Angela Davis has called global membership.”
What makes Haile different from any other African filmmaker is that he fought against many odds and primarily against studios and cultural establishments that were not so keen to promote his works because of their strong lessons they convey or the passionate way in which they oppose oppression and call for justice. Consequently, Haile made some of his most prominent films with his own money or with money he borrowed o managed to collect anyhow. He also faced many hurdles with the distribution rights of his films. He and his wife, filmmaker Sirikiana Aina, founded the distribution company Mypheduh Films Inc. in 1984.
A recent cultural event took place in Turin, Italy in honor of Haile’s works that are Visions of the repressed and the first comprehensive retrospective of the director in Italy and, in addition to presenting all Gerima film – some of them unpublished in Italy – will offer a preview of the work in progress of Black Lions, Roman Wolves / The Children of Adwa. Thus, there is a kind of historical continuum in Hiaile’s “cinematic oeuvre”, with the same of struggle and liberation going through most of his works.
As it was recently disclosed prior to the May 26 event in Italy honoring his works, “This memory documentary, which Gerima has worked for decades, is conceived as the result of Adwa, an African Victory, to tell the answer of the Ethiopian people against the fascist army in 1935. It tells the invasion collective trauma but also tenacious resistance that later led to independence. At the assembly, the testimonies and memories of survivors of war in Ethiopia (1935-1936) are interwoven with archival footage with the secular folklore, war songs, and poems of praise. The projection will show the first hour of this long process which includes the experience of the director’s father.”
Haile Gerima does not however enjoy professional fame in his home country as he does in the international film world. Maybe this is because his views are mostly unconventional or because he is a straightforward man who does not mince his words. He should however serve as a symbol of Ethiopia’s film industry to the outside world and an inspiration to the young and upcoming filmmakers who are still caught in humbugs as they often indulge in “man meets woman and falls in love” kind of stories that are the bread and butter of many aspiring movie makers whose careers are cut short for lack of proper orientation or absence of genuine passion for a cause worth fighting for. They should turn to Haile to learn how to make a movie in the genuinely Ethiopian way.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 19 MAY 2022
