Teza and the Surreal Cinema Experience

Early last year I read a BBC News article about an Ethiopian film, Haile Gerima's Teza, that won the highest award at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival (as well as a few awards in Venice the year prior, but losing the Golden Lion to The Wrestler). Considering my father is from Ethiopia, and considering this film was about the political tumult that took place after he left the country three and a half decades ago, and considering that this story has not been shown on film before, and considering I've never been to Ethiopia (and he hasn't been back), I was, to say the least, a little obsessed with tracking this film down.

Assuming that a full U.S. theatrical release was unlikely, I immediately set a Google Alert for the film so I could find out what was happening with it and when it would be released in any format. In the meantime I also contacted the production company on numerous occasions in the hope of receiving a screener copy to review, but never received a response. It was a shot in the dark, but it was still a shot. About six months ago the alerts started picking up speed, and earlier this year the film finally landed on American shores. Fittingly, it would play in a theater in Washington, D.C., home to Gerima and the largest Ethiopian population in the country.

But would it ever come to Minnesota? Impossible, I thought. It bounced around the East Coast (picking up raves along the way), however, and all of a sudden it began moving westward, arriving in Minneapolis last week (thank you, Minnesota Film Arts!). I gathered my family, including my dad, and we set off to Ethiopia on what truly was a unique cinematic adventure.

As Teza progressed, I had the surreal sensation that I was seeing my family history on film. Not a direct representation of it, but a portrait of the place in which my parents lived at a critical juncture in their lives (and also where my brother was born). It displayed the geography and language and extremely dangerous political climate; ultimately, much of what happened in this film affected my parent's decision to leave the country, first living in Austria (my mother's home) before arriving in California, where I was born.

Putting it together, then, I was literally relating my existence to much of the history portrayed in Teza. When you're cognizant of a connection like that while watching it, cognizant of the fact that changes here or decisions there could have significantly altered your life, well it's a bizarre experience.

Teza is a ravishing epic about Ethiopia's rarely discussed modern history, and while it's not a perfect film (of all things, the acting is a bit wooden at times), I'll never forget the experience of sitting in the theater and watching this film while considering that what was on screen actually led to me sitting in the theater and watching this film.

Have you ever had a similar "meta" experience with a film closely related to your family or your life? Are there movies that capture historical events or social changes that reach you on a deeper level because of your direct (or indirect) connection to them?

MSPIFF 2010: Week 2 Roundup

The final week of MSPIFF 2010 (yes, the one that ended ten days ago...) proved alternately frustrating and fulfilling. I only made it to an additional four films, easily amassing my lowest total since I moved back to Minnesota four years ago. There was a long list of films that I missed, but I prefer to reflect on the fact that nothing I saw was outright terrible.
 

My Only Sunshine - Plans to see the sold-out Today's Special were foiled on a packed-to-the-gills Friday night, so we opted for a Turkish film, My Only Sunshine (an appropriate choice as we'll be on our honeymoon in Turkey in just a few weeks). As breathtaking and vivid as the cinematography was, My Only Sunshine does not make Istanbul a particularly appealing place; maybe compare it to New York City as seen in Chop Shop. On the other hand, it was fascinating to observe the environment and cultural quirks of Istanbul that I'm sure we won't see on our brief and touristy stop to the teeming seaside city of 12 million people. My Only Sunshine is a slice-of-life story as experienced by Hayat (Elit Iscan), an adolescent girl living with her troubled father and dying grandfather (the effects of emphysema caused by smoking have truly never been captured on film as they are captured here). You expect it to develop into a warm coming-of-age tale, but despite a few laughs and a completely tacked-on happy ending, it's an altogether bleak depiction of a lost childhood in Istanbul. Nonetheless, I remained engaged throughout and the production had the decidedly "foreign film" feel that I specifically seek at these festivals.