Screening Ethiopia: A preliminary study of the history and contemporary developments of film production in Ethiopia

Until recently, Ethiopian cinema has attracted little scholarly attention outside the country. Nevertheless, its history is rich and complex, and thanks to the introduction of digital technologies, film production is today booming. Almost 600 films have been released over the past ten years, a fifth of it only during 2013. Crowds of people queue in front of Addis Ababa’s theatre halls, waiting to buy entry tickets to the most recent local releases. And ambitious young artists spend their little economies trying to build a name for themselves in the upcoming local stardom. This article presents the preliminary results of an ongoing research on the Ethiopian video film industry in order to open up the field for further discussion and debate. It is divided into four sections, devoted respectively to the history of film-making in Ethiopia, to the contemporary video film industry’s economy, and to an overview of the main narrative and aesthetic trends that have appeared since the emergence of the new wave of film production.