BY MULUGETA GUDETA
For the last two years or so, Ethiopian cinema, like any other industry, has been hard-hit by the COVID pandemic and the war in the north of the country that not only stole the headlines but also created a real vacuum filled by a lot of anxiety and uncertainties. This was not however a case unique to Ethiopia. The entrainment industry from the US to China and Europe had been crippled by the need to stay away from crowded places and the fear of catching the disease. Box office incomes were frozen as the public resorted to indoor recreational alternatives. Many studios stopped producing new films and all the actors in the industry felt the negative effects.
According to an Encyclopedia Encarta article “The Cinema of Ethiopia and the film industry in general is a relatively recent phenomenon in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian film industry is growing, but faces many problems that have prevented it from fully flourishing. Historically live stage theater enjoyed more popularity in Ethiopia, creating a handful of relatively successful stage actors.
Ethiopian films began modernizing since 2000s, implementing Amharic language, but due to wide home video and DVD distribution, it is often frustrated by copyright infringement in presence of piracy. This was reduced in early 2010s with an intervention of government and imposition of policy. Despite recently developing, the Ethiopian film production continued to be lack of complement quality in relation to world premiere with low budget amateurish style.” Although cinema is a recent phenomenon, the Ethiopian film industry has never witnessed an industry crisis as severe as the one caused by the pandemic.
According to one recent study “The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused an unprecedented health crisis. It was designated a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, and one month later the worldwide number of confirmed cases reached 1.7 million, with 100,000 deaths. The outbreak of COVID-19 also hit the economy severely, not only causing higher unemployment rates and lower income but also causing people to practice social distancing, that is, avoiding close contact with other people, which may have far-ranging implications for various industries.” This was particularly a bad moment for the Ethiopian film industry which was not as strong as its counterparts elsewhere in the world.
Ethiopia has a long tradition of movie making and dramatic arts but they were not structurally and financially strong enough to allow the actors in the entertainment sector to withstand the ravages of COVID-19 types of global crises. Even before the pandemic, Ethiopian cinema was just making baby steps to emerge as a viable industry despite the acute financial, technological and trained manpower.
According to another study, “the coronavirus has upended the global film industry, halting film production and closing cinemas. The dwindling confidence in physical venues coupled with the rise in the consumption of digital content from various sources, including mobile apps, TV streaming and gaming, has given an unprecedentedly hard lesson to the industry, triggering a rethink in the future of movie production, distribution and consumption.”
Even countries with a solid film industry, the pandemic has proved devastating. “Cinemas in Hong Kong were forced to close for more than 110 days in 2020 and practice strict reopening requirements under virus containment rules enacted to tame the COVID 19 pandemic. As a result, the city saw a 72% plunge in yearly box office receipts to HK$537 million, down from HK$1.9 billion in 2019.
Despite several rounds of government subsidies, which, according to the industry insiders, fell far short of covering the average cost of operating a movie screen in Hong Kong, the strong coronavirus headwinds have caused devastating pressure on local cinema operators, with UA Cinemas, the city’s third largest cinema chain winding up after 36 years of operation. “
Like in any country around the world, the pandemic has caused not only financial disasters but also many members of the acting guilds have lost their lives too. In Ethiopia, the number of deceased actors or produced during the pandemic might be few because their number has never been considered to begin with. When a serious pandemic like COVID-19 hit a country like Ethiopia, the fallouts were severe indeed both in material and human terms.
More developed countries had the financial and technological resources to minimize the losses whereas in Ethiopia movie technology being so underdeveloped and poorly financed, actors and producers as well as directors have lost their source of living as soon as the pandemic hit. As a result of this, many actors were forced to resort to their savings in order to stave off the crisis but as their savings were not great, they could only be exhausted in matters of a few months, leaving many workers without the means to prepare for the long-term.
It has therefore taken more than two years for the film industry in Ethiopia to show sign of life as new post-covid productions are rolling out of the small studios that are just starting to breathe a sigh of relief. Movies are great value creators around the world. According to recent estimates, Hollywood supports more than 2 million jobs and 400,000 American businesses. The British film industry is adding around 60 million pounds to the UK industry. Global box-office revenue totaled 42 billion dollars a year before the pandemic. The worldwide movie production and distribution is estimated to be worth 136 billion dollars.
According to a study conducted by UNESCO, “Over the past few years, Ethiopia’s film sector has been growing steadily. It is estimated that, between 2005 and 2015, 600 films were produced in Ethiopia, with 57 feature films also produced in 2018 alone. For the country, the film industry is a strategic economic growth sector, capable of playing meaningful social roles such as promoting a democratic culture, peace and unity.
After two years in the doldrums, new Ethiopian films are starting to be made and distributed. According to an article about the best Ethiopian movies in 2022, some Ethiopian movies perfectly create a show that the writers had in mind, bringing out the complete message and the meaning behind their creation. Unfortunately, there are many Ethiopian movies that leave much to be desired and are an awful waste of the beautifully created Ethiopian story.
“For the most part, 2022 has brought us some incredible visual creativity, interesting story lines, and a remarkable flair from the actors, directors, and stylists. This is no doubt brought about by the increasing competition between the actors/directors/writers and the growing financial incentive that great Ethiopian movies Up bring through YouTube, movie theaters, etc.”
Although 2022 may be considered a turning point in the revival of domestic movie making the industry has a still to go a long way to be resilient to many challenges and able to grow faster and rank among the big movie countries in Africa.
While Ethiopia ratified its film policy in 2017, with a special focus on job creation for the youth and gender equality, policy implementation has not started due to a lack of frameworks to carry out the envisaged measures. Consequently, the project supports Ethiopia in designing a structural and institutional framework, by laying the ground for the creation of a national film institute.”
The UNESCO Liaison Office in Addis Ababa in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ethiopia (MoCT) organized a virtual meeting on 29th April 2021 to launch a project on “Strengthening Ethiopia’s film industry through sound institutional and structural frameworks”. With financial support from the European Union (EU), the project provided international and national expert facilities for designing a structural and institutional framework which would enable the country to start the implementation of its film policy.
As many researches on the Ethiopian film industry suggest, what we need in Ethiopia is both awareness of the economic benefits of the film industry as income generator and job creator as well as a clear and binding film policy that would regulate all the actors in the industry. There is also a need to create the structural and institutional frameworks to help tackle problems stemming from organizational bottlenecks by paving the way for the establishment of a film institute to uplift the capacity of film professionals and to channel the necessary funding to enable quality film production and distribution.
The Ethiopian Herald July 31/2022
