Hollywood for America, Bollywood for India and Nollywood for Nigeria. What future name for Ethiopian hub of cinema? Will ‘Addiwood’ fit into this? Forget it for the time being as Ethiopian cinema is still miles behind those celebrated American, Indian and Nigerian names and places. However, Addis Ababa is also evolving in that direction starting with its status as a huge and still growing modern metropolis. A thriving film industry cannot obviously be built in shantytowns or around ramshackle buildings.
No doubt that Addis Ababa is now one of the most modern, beautiful, cosmopolitan and multiethnic capitals in Africa if not in the world. Ethiopia has more than 80 ethnic groups and all of them are demographically represented in Addis Ababa more or less depending on the growth of the capital and the development of its economy. Addis Ababa is big in two ways-in its size and dynamism as well as in its population composition.
Addis is also a melting pot of diverse cultures ranging from the music and dances originating in the north and south, costumes invented by the Dorze and other southern ethnic groups, food cultures, ritual practices, faiths, Christianity, Islam and other monotheist and polytheist denominations…etc. the Ethiopian capital has experienced communism in the 1970s, state capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s. It has wrestled with democracy, military rule and nationalism but remains unaffected by none of them. Addis is rather successful or adept at keeping the past and suspicious of modernizing theories. Addis is a real melting pot of spiritualities and philosophies if not ideologies. It is certainly the heartbeat of the entire nation and that of Africa too.
As a blooming African capital, Addis is also the center of the entertainment business and the city that is open to new ideas and new cultures, the melting pot of not only African but also global cultures and new technologies. The entertainment business is still recovering from the hit it has sustained during the COVID pandemic a couple of years ago and is now diversifying and trying to cope with the challenges.
New cinema halls have been built over the last couple of decades and movie fans have grown by leaps and bounds particularly after locally made films replaced imported ones. As foreign films became expensive to import, Ethiopian filmmakers stood to the challenge and produced hundreds of movies that created a strong basis for the grow of the local film industry. Technological advancement in this area has played a defining role in creating opportunities for aspiring young movie makers who used their passions to produce some remarkable movies that have won awards at international film festivals.
It may be useful here to trace the growth of Ethiopian cinema from the point of view of the emergence of new movie halls during and right after the end of Italian occupation of Ethiopia more than 80 years ago. Most of the old cinemas in Addis date back to the Italian occupation and the post-occupation period when foreign businessmen tried to introduce this potentially lucrative entertainment sector.
The growth of interest in cinema among the public has led to the production of the first Ethiopian black and wh9ite feature film back in 1961 when most African countries were under colonial rule. The first movie house was inaugurated under emperor Menelik and was known as “Seitan bet” or the ‘abode of the devil’, located on Churchill Road. That was the time when the French Lumière Brothers invented cinema.
There is always some paradox in Ethiopia’s development in many areas. Ethiopians are pioneers in many cultural and knowledge areas but are left behind by those who started after them. Ethiopia is the first African country to have started, what many intellectuals believe, is a modern African philosophy of man. At the same time, French philosopher Rene Descartes was developing his rationalism which is now considered the pioneer of modern European philosophy. Zara Yacob, the pioneer of the “philosophy of man” is now almost forgotten while the Frenchman is still shining.
Ethiopians invented a new architecture in Axum and Gondar that are still the wonders of the world while Europeans who started building design after them are now the leading inventors in architecture. The pioneers are left behind. Ethiopians are first to invent new things and last to benefit from them simply because they lack the spirit and tradition of continuity. One generation invents or introduces something new and the next generation ignores or undermines what has been built before it. This has become a long-established paradigm.
The same goes with the development of the film industry that was started by foreigners with the spirit of private enterprise until the military Derg regime came and nationalized all cinema houses under the banner of socialism which was in fact a step towards mind control and state ownership of culture. What was more absurd at that time was that the Derg apparatchiks did not have the slightest notion about the movies and what purpose they served. They were rather regarded as propaganda tools or imperialist inventions that should be put under control by the state. The result was a return to cultural stagnation and regression.
In Addis Ababa, the first public experience with the movies, started at the defunct Cinema Addis Ketama which was established in the heart of Mercato, then dubbed as the biggest open-air market in Africa. I am not sure whether Mercato has preserved its much advertised open air nature; since it has changed from a horizontally expanding market to a vertically growing one in the last couple of decades or so. The open air markets within Mercato are largely disappearing leaving room to the modern malls with high rise buildings and Western-style or fashionable shops.
Cinema Addis Ketema was at that time one of the most frequented movie halls in Addis together with Ras Hailu Cinema which was named after a member of the nobility during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. The other movie theatres were located in Piazza close to one another. The first was Cinema Ethiopia that belonged to a Lebanese businessman and was later confiscated after the revolution while it is still keeping its original name. Cinema Adwa was located a little farther from cinema Ethiopia, at the place later known as Arada commercial centre which is now being pulled down to give way to the view of newly built Adwa memorial.
Cinema Empire is also located a little farther from Cinema Ethiopia on the way to Arat Kilo, in one of the busiest areas which is surrounded by boutiques, shops and banks. Cinema Empire was built the Italian fascist during the occupation and was known as “Cinema Imperio” in Italian. The three cinema halls were serving their audiences for more than eight decades and some of them are still operating although very much weakened and neglected.
The two decades after the new millennium witnessed the resurrection of Ethiopian cinema. Those were the two decades of economic boom, cultural blossoming and creative explosion. New cinema halls were built by enlightened entrepreneurs who saw in the sector a huge potential for growth as a large audience of youthful cinemagoers hungering for local movies exploded on the entertainment stage. That was the golden age of Ethiopian cinema that has now turned from a roar into a whisper. The same logic is at work here too. A new generation does something new and the following generation turns the wheels back and this has become a long-established paradigm.
It is necessary to look back at the old days in the development of cinema and how the short boom turned into a long bust if one interested in knowing the drawbacks and ensure continuity in the future. The problem however is that even when we know the challenges we are reluctant to adopt the solutions and go forward. The problems of Ethiopian cinema are at the same time economic, political, cultural and technological. Economically speaking private entrepreneurs at one time came forwards in droves in order to invest in the sector when returns were high but withdraw in panic when the tides were low and profits sagged.
The newly-rich investors are not only well versed in the basic principles of capitalism such as perseverance, flexibility and patience are the basic ingredient of market principles. Bill Gates did not build his Microsoft empire in two or three years. He devoted his entire life to his ideas and went through periods of frustrations when the whole world could not see the potentials in computers and allied inventions two or three decades ago. It was through hard work and a long and sustained engagement that Microsoft is now what it is.
The principles of capitalism are everywhere true. There is no gain without pain. Here in this country, most inventors are passionate about the gains but shy away when the going gets tough. They change gear or withdraw with their initial capital with some minor gains. There is no continuity in what they do or lack a culture of perseverance or resilience. There is no learning from past mistakes or past experiences. Those investors who withdrew from the film industry must regret their decisions at some point along the way when technology made it easier to produce films and talented actors appeared on the scene and new cinema halls were built.
It is sad that the national cultural institution such as the Ministry of Culture have always failed to provide financial, training, advisory or training and other forms of support to the industry operators. In other African countries like Egypt and Nigeria the film industry developed with heavy financial support from the state or the private sector such as banks. In Nigeria, the state banks played a huge role in developing the Nigerian Film industry and bring it up to international standards, which has no become the third biggest industry in the world after Hollywood and Bollywood.
The cultural and technological challenges facing the film industry are obvious. Both the filmmakers and the audience are addicted to a certain genre of cinema such as tragic performances or comic ones that are boringly repetitive or hardly creative and devoid of serious social themes that could entertain as well as educate the public. The old Charlie Chaplin movies are comic but they are not comic for the sake of comedy. They had also deeper and lasting messages, serious stories that captured the imagination of the audiences. Those movies were funny but also critical and satirical and sometimes infuriated the authorities who called Chaplin a “communist agent” during the McCarthy witch-hunt era. Ethiopian movies are dominated by Western clichés or stereotypes as well as boring repetitions
The technological challenge is that Ethiopian movie makers are quick learners of movie technology but they use to produce mostly sub-standard or bad movies, therefore missing the point of adopting a new technology, which is to make better films. Last and not least, the absence of film criticism has turned a bad situation worse by allowing actors, scriptwriters and producers to repeat and reinvent their mistakes in the belief that they are doing great when in fact they are not. A future boom in the industry should therefore take these factors into consideration and listen to critical voices instead of repeating old mistakes in new guises.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 21 DECEMBER 2023
