Teza

Teza
Teza  

Ethiopia 2008 

directed by
Haile Gerima

screenplay
Haile Gerima

cinematography
Mario Masini

music
Vijay Iyer, Jorga Mesfin

sound
Umbe Adan, Stephan Konken

editing
Haile Gerima, Loren Hankin

cast
Aron Arefe, Abiye Tedla, Takelech Beyene, Teje Tesfahun, Nebiyu Baye, Mengistu Zelalem,
producer
Pedro Pimenta, Johannes Rexin, Sascha Verhey
production
Negod-Gwad Production
2714 Georgia Ave Nw Washington, DC  2000
T (202) 234-4755

world sales
The Match Factory
Balthasarstrasse 79-81 50670 Cologne / Germany T +49 221 539 709-0 F +49 221 539 709-10
M info@matchfactory.de

format
35 mm, barvni/colour

running time
140'

The social reality of Ethiopia during the period of Mengistu’s military junta, extending from the capital Addis Ababa to the straw-covered mud huts hundreds of miles away, is presented in a first-person narrative by the intellectual Anberber. After having studied medicine in Germany, he returns to his homeland, where, due to the repressive regime, he cannot use his expert knowledge at will or in line with his capabilities. If, from afar and in the company of progressive students, everything seemed possible, the confrontation with reality is so much harder. He again finds himself in Germany, full of prejudice against black people. During the narration, which begins and ends at the hearth and home, he constantly switches between various periods of his life. “I dream my past, but the present is so powerful that it continues to hijack my sentimental journey to my childhood,” said Gerima, who, with his films, heals his hurt feelings over the question of black people. In Teza, which has a strong informative note, containing in its two hours and a half of running time thirty minutes of Ethiopian history, the story set in the African countryside with warm colours and lively sounds ends in the victory of life with a foreseeable and discouraging future. It is another one of Gerima’s films about which Martin Scorsese said that they are “made out of necessity by people who simply had to pick up a camera and shoot, to tell a story that no one else was telling”.

“Especially black people of Africa in Europe or America are demonised in the cultural climate, especially in the mass media. They are the targets of the problems of any European who is not enlightened. Any unenlightened Europeans, even enlightened Europeans, their biggest program is foreigners. They make it as if it is the principal. If the foreigners coming from Africa and Asia, etc., disappeared, the world would be better. But it is a scapegoating and when society scapegoats certain people, then the unenlightened section or, I would say, the group that feels powerless strikes back in a very incoherent way, incoherent to the very self-perpetrators of the violence.” (Haile Gerima)

Haile Gerima

Haile Gerima was born in Gondar, Ethiopia. In 1968, he started studying film at UCLA, where he became one of the pillars of the newly founded Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers. With his body of works, among which the more prominent are Bush mama (1976), Harvest: 3,000 Years (1976), Sankofa (1993) and Adwa – an African Victory (1999), he is considered one of the most influential foreign directors. Because he could not find anyone who would produce or distribute his films, which deal especially with the problems of black people, he founded his own production and distribution companies (Mypheduh Films Inc. and Negod Gwad Productions), thus securing the independence of his filmmaking. Since 1975, he has held the position of Professor of Film at Howard University, Washington.