Ethiopian cinema between local and international

Art

Wednesday 7/9/2022 02:22 AM Abu Dhabi time

Ethiopian cinema has witnessed great developments over the past decades, yet it has been trapped inside for long periods.

The reason for this domestic downturn is that Ethiopian filmmakers have not bothered to promote it in the global media, with an obsession with the language standing as a very big obstacle to its spread abroad.

Despite its limited participation internationally, Ethiopian cinema has won many awards in several festivals, including “Luxor for African Cinema” and “African Cinema in Khouribga”, as well as festivals in Italy and other European countries.

There were participations of some great Ethiopian cinematic works, such as the film by Ethiopian director Haile Qreima “Teza”, which talks regarding the political transformations in Ethiopia in the seventies and eighties of the last century, as well as the movie “The Lamb” by the young Ethiopian director Yarid Zalqi, which won the International Film Festival. Khouribga”, when Ethiopian cinema was the Alex Reed of honor of the festival.

Ethiopian cinema has tried, during its long career, to present what makes it compete with international cinema internally, but it faced challenges that kept it locked in the local framework, and this is due to its production of very local issues for decades, as the topics of the multi-Ethiopian society were a cinematic hero, so they were presented emotionally My youth, while there were also works that discussed major issues, but they did not find their way to international festivals.

In the current era, the Ethiopian cinema has begun to change its skin and present it by presenting a variety of political issues that concern the people of Ethiopia, even those issues that in the past might not be presented, so films have appeared that tell stories from political conflict periods inside the Ethiopian, the last of which was a movie ” 97”, which dealt with political events that occurred in 2005 during the elections, which Ethiopia witnessed and following which it entered into bloody conflicts.

Recently, director Heptamao Dango presented a film with a strange name, “Article 39”, which is one of the articles of the Ethiopian constitution. It is a bold film regarding the political reality in the country, and it was widely accepted.

Over time, some film companies produced in Ethiopia began to enter the framework of cinematic experimentation, by choosing ideas that were acceptable to the viewer and those interested in Ethiopian cinema, but some of them, unfortunately, are poor in content.

Ethiopia’s cinema remains far from the global market, and unless it uses an open productive and industrial mindset, taking advantage of the pluralism of the Ethiopian interior, it will not promote outside its framework, and perhaps many of those interested in Ethiopian cinema dream that their works will transcend their geographical borders, even to neighboring countries, through an active translation project to produce them Huge, but this requires a great effort from the state.

The opinions and information contained in the opinion articles express the author’s point of view and do not reflect the direction of the newspaper