Acutely aware of how Ethiopians, and Africans in general, are often negatively portrayed in the media, Ethiopian writer-director, Yared Zeleke was determined that his debut feature film, Lamb, would be a celebration of his homeland and his people. "I am reclaiming the image of who we are," Zeleke says over the phone, his voice croaky, the result of a cold.
Lamb is the tender story of nine-year-old Ephraim (Rediat Amare), an Ethiopian Jewish boy who, after the death of his mother, is sent by his father to live with distant relatives, far from his drought-ridden village. His father goes to seek work in Addis Ababa, promising to return for him when the rains fall. Ephraim's only source of solace is his beloved pet sheep, Chuni, but when his uncle tells him he is going to sacrifice Chuni for a forthcoming Christian feast, Ephraim needs to find a way to save his lamb and escape back home.
Set in landscape of outstanding beauty, the film is a universal coming of age tale about home, family, displacement and loss, filtered through an insider's view of Ethiopia's rural life, culture and traditions.
The story is semi-autobiographical. Zeleke grew up in the slums of Addis Ababa in 1980s, during Ethiopia's communist dictatorship known as the "Derg". Zeleke's father fled to America to avoid arrest and his mother moved out of the slum to another side of the city. But, he says, despite the cycles of war, famine and political turmoil, "I had a really happy childhood in Ethiopia with my brother, Israel. It was even more colourful and more loving than this film. I was raised by my [paternal] grandmother and although I grew up in a city with no pet, I don't cook or anything like that (unlike Ephraim), the theme is very much my life story."
Zeleke left Ethiopia when he was ten, to join his father in New York. "Essentially I had to leave behind everybody I knew and loved. It was devastating because I didn't know my father very well."
The film shows a way of life that is undeveloped, certainly by Western standards. Ephraim's relatives are subsistence farmers, struggling to survive.
They live in a hut without electricity, cook over an open fire and gender roles are strictly traditional. Ephraim proves to be useless as a farmer and instead - much to the chagrin of his uncle - is a talented cook. "Boys don't cook," he's told. "Did my cousin bear a son or a sissy?"
But contrary to what some viewers have thought, Lamb is not set in the past. Little has changed in Ethiopia in 30 years, Zeleke says. "What you see reflects typical, contemporary [rural] Ethiopia. It's still wild. Ethiopia is about the size of France, Spain and Portugal combined. It has about 70 per cent of Africa's mountains and about 85 per cent of the population are subsistence farmers."
He agrees that the expansive, verdant landscape in the film is a character in its own right. Lamb was mostly shot in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, in Gondar - the region where many Jews came from and still live. The mountains are as ancient as the people who practiced the earliest forms of Christianity and Judaism. "[Ethiopians] are the most mountainous people on the African continent, right? Our food, our way of life, our history and religion - [everything] is shaped by these mountains. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa with no colonial legacy. The mountains provided protection."
But these hills can also be deceptive. Zeleke is often asked, "If it's green, why are they hungry?" He explains that the weather has a direct impact on the livelihood of subsistence farmers. "If there's too much rain or it comes too late, it's [problematic]. If there's not enough rain for the corn to grow - our staple food - it's a catastrophe." The story shows how the erratic weather patterns can cause havoc and malnutrition, rather than by drought and famine, which is more of a cliché, he says.
Judaism is an intrinsic part of Ethiopia's history and is one of the reasons why Zeleke, who is not Jewish himself, chose to incorporate a Jewish narrative in his film. Ephraim is referred to as a Felasha, a derogatory but - according to Zeleke - accepted term in Ethiopia used to describe Ethiopian Jews. Ephraim's heritage also emphasises his alienation from his adopted Christian family and new home, he adds.
Elsewhere, when Ephraim's mother appears in a dream sequence, Zeleke uses visual pointers to reference her Jewishness, such as the way she wears her hair, the pattern of her dress and the tattoo on her forehead. But they are so subtle that only Ethiopian Jews would pick up on them, he explains.
Zeleke wanted Lamb to portray the three religions- Judaism, Christianity and Islam - which have, in the main, coexisted in Ethiopia for thousands of years. "It hasn't always been smooth but it's worth being proud of because the country is at peace with this as we live in harmony, such as in my own family, [which is mixed]." They are mostly Ethiopian Christian, but he also has half sisters who are Jewish.
Finding suitable actors proved time-consuming. Zeleke spent six months auditioning and videotaping more than 6000 people, half of whom were children. He describes Ethiopians as being very shy - "other Africans call us the Japanese of Africa" - and it took a lot of encouragement for potential actors to perform in front of the camera for him. The majority of the film's cast are non-professional actors. It was the first film for both Rediat Amare, who was just 10 or 11 at the time and Kidist Siyum who plays Ephraim's feisty cousin, Tsion, then 15, but, says Zeleke, they stood out. "I chose the absolute best but [the process] was gruesome."
Lamb was the first Ethiopian film to screen at Cannes last year and it was selected, but not nominated, as Ethiopia's submission for Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars. Its success has led some people to describe Zeleke as 'the African director' but he is not convinced. Africa is vast, he points out, "about the size of four Americas."
The Ethiopian film industry is not one that is widely known about, even on the arthouse scene, yet it is, per capita, the second largest on the continent after Nigeria, Zeleke explains. All the films are made by, for and about Ethiopians, "We're a very inward looking society." His hope is that Lamb's critical acclaim will inspire other Ethiopian filmmakers to go on and make films for the international market.
He divides his time between America and Ethiopia but currently is in Italy as a participant on the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency Programme, where he won an artists' residency.
He is working on his next film, which is set in the city, "so you'll see a whole other side to the country," he says with a laugh. "Ethiopia is beautiful. The people are beautiful, the costumes … It's spiritual and it's gentle. We may be one of the poorest countries still today but we have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. I'm reclaiming Ethiopia again. It's high time!"
