In Alazar, the characters are lost in a vast barren landscape, where nature turned upside down forces them to leave or to stay.
Between religions, miracles, and curses, the filmmaker carries out a skillful investigation in which a quest for balance with our environment remains a distant horizon.
Alazar is a film about disruption in a farming community in contemporary Ethiopia when the patriarch of a prominent family disappears from his grave. Tessema, his son, begins to question the church’s divine explanation, forcing him to launch his own investigation.
From excerpts of an interview with Director Beza Hailu Lemma:
“Life is hard in most of rural Ethiopia. People are highly dependent on the crops they farm on their land to make a living. If the annual rain doesn’t arrive on time, food shortages are highly likely to happen and if the drought lasts a long time, their only choice is to stay and face hunger or move away. The film takes place in a town in Northern Ethiopia but the story doesn’t have a specific time and place. The film contains many perspectives that represent the diverse set of beliefs that exist in the country. The fate of mankind resting on the restoration of balance in nature or a truce with ‘God’ belongs both to the indigenous ways of life and to Christianity.”
Beza Hailu Lemma is based in Addis Ababa. Passionate about both documentary and fiction, Beza has made several short films including Katanga Nation (2022) which screened in over 20 film festivals worldwide.
Film Africa is the celebration of African and African diaspora cinema presented by the Royal African Society.
Source: www.filmafrica.org/