BY MULUGETA GUDETA
By all measures, Ethiopia was an early starter in Africa to be introduced to the film enterprise more as a magical entertainment than a feasible business and the last to succeed in conquering the world of movie making in Africa as other countries like Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and Kenya to name a few continued to blossom even though they were relative late comers to the industry.
At one point, a few veteran Ethiopian movie makers had the opportunity and enough talent to bring their productions to the attention of the African audiences through various film festivals. Nowadays, no Ethiopian film makes it to those festivals as both the veterans as well as the amateurs seem to ran out of ideas if not the money to change their scripts that are languishing in their drawers into motion pictures.
As a rule, people don’t make films in Ethiopia just for pleasure or to express yourself or convey some noble vision. This is also true anywhere in the world where movies are hatched like hen’s eggs in small and big studios and appear in various forms going from the Internet to the mobile phones to other high tech distribution technology. Thousands of films appear around the world each year and almost all of them are produced to make money. In other worlds, the film industry is a money making industry. Other claims like talent, inspiration, artistic expression come afterwards.
The Ethiopian film industry had started to raise its head for much of the 1990s through the following decade, producing a lot of trash but also some interesting pictures that genuinely caught the imaginations of moviegoers as well as the emerging investors who were putting their money into the tiny and slowly grinding studios, mostly operating on borrowed money by amateur producers whose “self-contained” roles as script writers, producers, directors and actors sometimes baffled audiences for the similarities of themes, story lines and acting styles that were copied from more “successful” filmmakers.
Veteran or established filmmakers like Solomon Bekele and the venerated Haile Gerima were living and breathing life into the infant film industry by bringing forth their crafts, experiences and education to the attention of potential learners and younger craftsmen and women of the industry that was making baby steps in an environment of economic growth that gave them the opportunity to make low-budget and amateurish films with the aim of not of profits but recognition.
Making films in those “boom” years sounded like becoming celebrities in a profession largely unknown and misunderstood by the public. Later on, the real purpose and life blood of the film business became increasingly evident. One could not survive in an industry that lives on continuous infusion of more money than talent. After a long hiatus since the birth of the modern film industry in Ethiopia back in the 1960s, there was some glimmer of hope for a robust revival but all that remained an illusion by the end of last decade as films became ordinary things and the initial passion and audience enthusiasm dissipated slowly. This was indeed bad news for an industry that could have provided for so many jobless youngsters and could bring tax money to the government.
The tiny Ethiopian film industry is apparently standing on the brink of total eclipse as the number of films produced each year has dwindle to a handful and the people involved in the industry are abandoning it in droves, changing professions or simply idling away their times instead of sticking to an enterprise that has run out of steam. At one time hundreds of films were made and shown. Now you can count them on the fingers of a single hand if you exclude “films” made with the cheapest and oldest video camera with a minimum of actors whose acting roles are often confined to the usual “boy loves girl and kills her out of jealousy” stereotypes that kill your appetite for movies as soon as you leave the theatres.
What is paradoxical in all this is the fact that the country is currently bristling with historic events that could be turned into movies instantly while filmmakers have long lost the appetite to work on those inspirational events. Patriotism is always in the air in the country but movie makers have not yet managed to turn one of the historic events like the Battle of Adwa into an epic motion picture event with the potential to win the Oscars in many categories. Haile Gerima has tried to revive the spirit of Adwa in a still movie sequence but has not yet touched the heart of the matter. Once again, this brings us to the question of money or investment in the small industry that is threatening to disappear overnight for lack of finances and committed professionals.
Government or the Ministry of Culture is one potential life saver that could breathe a great deal of oxygen into the dying body of the Ethiopian film industry. Unfortunately however the tourism or culture ministries are not interested in this extremely important undertaking. Egyptian or Nigerian movie makers could develop fast simply because they benefitted from government financial and technical largess that opened film academies and financed the training of future directors producers and script writers. Not so in Ethiopia where film making is considered a luxury that few can afford and many cannot properly understand. While other African countries are bringing their productions to the attention of global audiences, filmmaking in Ethiopia seems to be going backwards and maybe disappear into total oblivion.
The recent international film festival in Rotterdam is a good example to compare and see the widening gulf between the Ethiopian and other African industries. According to African Report magazine, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya among others have been chosen 10 top African films at the Rotterdam Film Festival. “The Specter of Boko Haram” is the winner of the Tiger Competition award worth 42, 772 dollars and dazzled this year’s jury, who describe it as a “story that centers on the filmmaker’s patient and honest gaze on the hovering presence of violence seen through the eyes of innocents”.
According to the film review in Africa Report, fourth ranked Kenyan film by Angela Wanjiku “addresses the essential and ambivalent but not publicly discussed traumas caused by prisons in Africa. In her debut feature, she brilliantly uses multilayered ploy to unleash the slow burn of the profound pain of the main character, a former English teacher (Geoffrey), now a manual laborer.” The other films are from Egypt, Morocco, South Africa Nigeria and Namibia. The 2023 version of the Rotterdam Film Festival “reunited audiences and filmmakers from far and wide for a full edition for the first time after the pandemic.” By the way, the COVID-19 pandemic has also hit the Ethiopian film and entertainment industry that could not withstand the negative fallouts and sunk deep into a chronic malaise as we can see it now.
Where is the Ethiopia film industry now? Money problems and the pandemic have hit it flat on the belly and it is running out of breath for lack of “oxygen” to revive it. It may be time for the remnants of the former movie fraternity in the country to come together and start by discussing the problems that have tapped the industry before identifying and feasible solution. The ministries of tourism or culture can join hands in providing the logistics for such an event perhaps financial support for reviving the industry with a chosen film that shows the amazing faces of Ethiopia’s landscapes that could be used to advertise tourism tours and travels.
The money thus produced could be used to finance the revival of the industry and keep it moving for some time until the ghosts that are haunting it leave the scene for a healthier and dynamic business that could contribute indirectly to the economy in the form of jobs and even investment.
The tiny Ethiopian film industry is apparently standing on the brink of total eclipse as the number of films produced each year has dwindle to a handful and the people involved in the industry are abandoning it in droves, changing professions or simply idling away their times
The Ethiopian Herald 26 February 2023
