Congratulations to The Cursed Spears for winning the Best Documentary Award at the 19th Ethiopian International Film Festival! This recognition highlights the film’s powerful portrayal of the Peace Ceremony in Arbore.
This film by Alula Pankhurst and Solomon Girma is about a peace ceremony held in Southern Ethiopia in 1993 and how it has become relevant in the current context of the transition from war to peace in Ethiopia.
This summary is based on initial footage Alula Pankhurst filmed at the time, and from the film Bury the Spear produced by Ivo Strecker and Alula Pankhurst in 2003 featuring discussions between Ivo and Grazmach Sura the initiator of the peace ceremony who made a worldwide appeal for peace. The video also draws on a more recent visit of Ivo and Alula to Arbore in 2019 filmed by Tesfahun Haddis talking to Hora Sura the son of Grazmach Sura who played a key role in the peace ceremony.
The Ethiopian International Film Festival (EIFF) is an Ethiopian film festival that began in 2005 and is held annually in Addis Ababa, aimed at the Ethiopian and African film industry. The festival includes screenings of 100 features, shorts, fiction, documentaries, animation, experimental, classics and contemporary films. All screenings are shown in public spaces and filmmakers introduce their work and organize workshops and seminars in practice or theory.
Best films of the year have 10 categories and the nominees are presented in the opening ceremony, with winners announced in the closing ceremony. The EIFF is considered the equivalent version of the American Academy Awards.