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Afew decades ago, people
thought that the images depicted in cinema houses were things that negated
religion, or were against the holy spirits. There was a special film hall in a
corner of the Emperor’s palace compound at what is now the Addis Abeba
University. The Emperor’s palace keepers and guardsmen used to shout war songs
and swear in the name of the Emperor that they would defend His Imperial
Majesty. The Emperor was said to have enjoyed the foolish acts of those people
who had no idea about films.
As a small boy, I remember a
good number of the audience in the cinema halls covered their eyes, or turned
their faces away to avoid watching actors kiss each other, or get suggestively
closer. It was impudent to stare at such actions, as though one was taking part
in the whole affair.
If my memory serves me right,
Gumma was the first film produced in Amharic. The story was about a young man
who killed his friend and travelled from place to place in chains, trying to
collect money to pay of the family of the deceased for the crime he had
committed. Then came Hirut Abatiwa Manew? (Who is Hirut’s Father?), and this was
followed by Aster. The daily or weekly newspapers were apprehensive about
criticising even the imported films, let alone the local ones as they did not
have the skills to do so. The defunct English weekly magazine, Addis Reporter,
was exceptional. It used to write critical accounts of films being screened in
town.
Like in many other aspects, we
were colonized by the western films to the extent that we tried to mimic actors
in the way we walked, smoked, danced and engaged the fair sex. The obsession was
such that it led us to believe that even Soviet films were to be considered
marginal, like other second world films, including Indian films whose
make-believe camera tricks were too obvious, even by our standards. If someone
told you lies, you asked if he or she was an Indian film producer, that is how
bad they were. We used to sit all day watching Chapter films that lasted several
hours.
A few years back, Yonas
Birhane Mewa, who had gone to the US to study cinematography, came back and
produced an Ethiopian film, in which Ejigayehu Shibabaw had a role to play. (I
do not remember the title of the film.) Then came a long pause in the field.
Dramas and stage plays took over. These were also pushed to the periphery by the
production of musical and video films and clips.
After a long interval, the
filmmaking industry picked up and the tide seems to be favouring the business.
The renaissance must have been the impact of self pride, or the philosophy of
“consuming locally produced items,” as the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe tells
us was the order of the day right after independence in his novel, Man of the
People.
Advertising agencies are
hammering for our attention with high sounding words about films made in India,
sorry Ethiopia. The few cinemas-cum-theatres are screening, such films as Mezez,
Rohama, Yefird Ken, Siwer Galabi, Operation Agazi, Key Sihitet, Ayasikim,
Bermuda, Wubetin Filega and Desdemona. Some of these films have been screened
for months, if not for years.
Filmmaking is indeed becoming
a thriving business, despite the global economic downturn. Cynics joke that
films get popularity not because of their essential text, but because youngsters
find cinemas much more convenient to be closer to each other than anywhere else.
That may be a little farfetched to contemplate, but facts on the ground reveal
that Amharic films are getting more and more popular.
Most of these Amharic films
are based on routine individual feats like revenge, mistrust, or money matters.
There are, however, a few professional filmmakers, like Salem Makuria, associate
professor at Wellesley College in Boston, and the internationally acclaimed
Haile Gerima, the recipient of the OSELLA best screenplay award for his film
Teza, (2009).
The same film has recently
earned him an award in Burkina Faso. This award is an international accolade. We
know more about Haile Gerima because he has been in the field since he was 21.
Haile was born in Gondar in
1946 and crossed the Atlantic in 1968. He studied filmmaking at UCLA, and has
become one of the few Africans to win an international accolade as a black
filmmaker in Africa. Haile Gerima then joined Howard University as a professor
of filmmaking in 1975. Haile is no stranger to the filmmaking world. Not only is
he a producer and writer of films, but he is also a philosopher, a producer, a
writer and a director.
Local filmmaking companies
have grown by leaps and bounds. Companies like Aynet Mengistu Film Production,
Abenezer Production, Tesfaye Mammo Film Production, Kora Audio and
Entertainment, Lalibella Film Production are some of the few that come to mind.
Names like Jara Film Production are no strangers to our ears. There are a lot of
Amharic films being screened at the cinemas and the number of these local made
films is growing steadily.
This is not to say that just
because films are better preferred than stage plays or imported films at the
moment that we can be reassured that things will remain that way. In fact, it
looks like the time has come for critics to write about films written by
know-it-all and do-it-all people whose work is not worth the money paid for the
ticket. |
