Lucy Gebre-Egziabher: A Woman on a Mission

Lucy Gebre-Egziabher: A Woman on a Mission

U.S.-based Ethiopian filmmaker-professor Lucy Gebre-Egziabher is a woman on a mission to empower as many women as possible to take leadership roles in cinema. While planning for the curriculum for her seminar, “From Script to Screen” as a Fulbright Scholar in Addis Ababa in the fall of 2016, she put into practice what she already understood about the importance of having gender parity in her classroom. She asked the admissions representative to actively encourage women to enroll. Women answered the call. Her empowerment strategy had proven successful: the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa invited her to lead a screenwriting workshop for Ethiopian women journalists and filmmakers in conjunction with its consciousness raising campaign on gender-based violence (GBV). The women responded again energetically: these women were on a mission! She developed the screenwriting workshop, entitled “Telling Herstory”, around the theme of gender-based violence. Each of the three scriptwriting finalists produced a five-minute film, funded by the U.S. Embassy, which was screened at the launching of its GBV campaign. 

The “Telling Herstory” initiative was the beginning of what Lucy hopes to be an ongoing collaboration between her home institution, NOVA, Northern Virginia Community College where she teaches filmmaking, and Ethiopia.

I recently asked Lucy about their current activities and, yes, she and the women are still on a mission! 

What have you been working on since your “Telling Herstory” workshop in Addis?

I am happy to report that two years after the meeting in Addis with the Women on a Mission team I am still in touch with them and am continuing to mentor some of these talented sisters! When we left off, we had agreed that the first project to tackle would be the documentary on the Yellow Movement, about the Ethiopian women lawyers/activists for women’s rights.

I am blessed to say that I am still working with three of the Women on a Mission team. The rest are there in spirit, but since some of them come from print media, broadcast, etc., their involvement is less.

Talk a bit about the three Women on a Mission who you are mentoring.

Serkadis Megabiyaw is the filmmaker whose short won the Dean's Award for cinematic distinction at the 2017 NOVA Student Film Festival. She also has a TV show in Addis called Endewaza. Meaza Hadera is a journalist for EBS (Ethiopian Broadcasting Service) and has made a short that is timely and on point after our training; it addressed the issue of child marriage in Ethiopia. Redeat Abate is an architect by training but has a passion for filmmaking; she is a screenwriter and a set designer, and in my opinion would make a great producer! I have been mentoring these talented women as well as giving moral support, or helping them network with industry people. 

Just to give context, the Film Collaborative International is a forum that you created, bringing together the works of the film students at NOVA and in Ethiopia to be presented at the NOVA Student Film Festival. And Serkadis Megabiyaw, who you mentored during your Fulbright stay in Addis Ababa, won the Dean’s Award! Bravo!

To return to your Women on a Mission projects, there are a few in the works?

Yes, one is a documentary on the Yellow Movement that I will be executive producing. It was a very high-profile case due to local lobbying. The movement was also the first to blog and post about the case of Hanna, a young girl who was gang raped and left to die, a few years ago. The Yellow Movement established its niche as a nucleus serving to mobilize, influence, lobby and advocate with and for women of Ethiopia, including combating gender-based violence. This project is in pre-production stage. [Follow link for more information about the Aberash Case].

The second is a short narrative on climate change, which is part of the Films Without Walls series. These women are representing Ethiopia in this international film initiative and will make a short film that will be screened at the 2018 NOVA Student Film Festival – Films Without Walls Series. As of today, we have several countries from around the world participating.

I just want to recall that there was post on the African Women in Cinema Blog announcing the call for collaborations for the Films Without Walls Series and you talk about how it came about.

What is the other project that is in the works?

Finally, the formation of the Ethiopian Women Filmmakers Association (EWFA) is still a goal and a dream.  I believe it can serve as the entity needed through which to provide support and training opportunities to young and upcoming Ethiopian women filmmakers in Ethiopia. The idea was to have the EWFA produce the documentary on the Yellow Movement and in turn have the women lawyers from the Yellow Movement help with the legal work to establish EWFA. Sisters supporting and helping to uplift each other is the motto! Amen!

And there is a more expansive project to get other women on a mission involved! 

Yes, I am working as we speak to develop "Telling Herstory" screenwriting workshops for young women filmmakers to be delivered in various countries in Africa. That is also a dream! Anyway, will keep you posted. Until the next one! 

Conversation with Lucy Gebre-Egziabher and Beti Ellerson, February 2018.

Images courtesy of Lucy Gebre-Egziabher

Highlighting Salem Mekuria: Trailblazer

Photo: salemmekuria.com

This post was originally published to highlight African women via films online during the Directed by Women worldwide film viewing party - 1-15 September 2015. It includes the link to the personal website of Salem Mekuria:

http://salemmekuria.com 

Text from Salem Mekuria website (updated):

Salem Mekuria is the director of Mekuria Productions, an independent film production company established in 1987. She is a professor emerita after teaching for twenty four years  in the Art Department at Wellesley College, Massachusetts. She splits her residence between Ethiopia and the United States. Since 1987, she has been an independent writer, producer, director, videographer, and a video installation artist. Her award winning documentary films and video installations feature Ethiopian subjects and have been shown internationally. (Photo: salemmekuria.com).

On this post I will take the opportunity to present excerpts from our interview in 1997 published in my book Sisters of the Screen: Women of Africa on Film, Video and Television, 2000.

Beti Ellerson: 

As an African woman filmmaker...do you see yourself playing a certain role as a woman?

 

Salem Mekuria:
When I'm working, I don't think necessarily that I would operate as a woman filmmaker. It's when I am in front of an audience that I know I'm being looked at as a representative of some rare sort, especially as an African woman or as a black woman in the United States, and I feel somewhat responsible, to be responsible. Because I think we have a lot of work to do, I feel that if I don't do well maybe others won't get the same chance that I have.  I'm privileged in many ways, that I have been able to do what I want to do, and so I feel like I should be so responsible sometimes, to make sure that I don't destroy...that I don't burn bridges for other women coming after me.  It's not an easy thing to be, and maybe because I am always the responsible sort, I don't know, sometimes I feel that there is a burden that I have to carry.  But at other times I feel really terribly privileged to be doing something that I love doing.

At other times I feel like I have to focus on stories about women because there aren't that many films being made about stories about women, by women especially. It's a mixed bag. There is real happiness that I am doing this, and there's a certain kind of tension of whether or not I can chose to do anything I want to do.  Do I always have to focus in areas where I feel there is a lack?  Do I have to fill a vacuum?  Those thoughts go in my head at times.

But I love doing stories about women.  Even when it has nothing to do with women particularly. For example, in Deluge I gravitate towards including women, more women than men, getting stories from the women because I feel that their perspective is neglected. So I feel that is my role as a woman filmmaker. I also feel that I can do it better, because I feel that women open up more to me than they do to men, or they open up in different ways than with men. There is a certain comfort, there's a certain kind of shared experience, they don't have to explain to me. So I feel I have a better handle sometimes in getting some of the stories from women.  I feel that is also a part of my role as a woman filmmaker.