Cinema
Barud 77
Bereket Yowhannes · 1996
Synopsis
An epic of the war of liberation: Eritrean fighters resist foreign domination, told with the brutal realism that the country's public expected from its own cinema. The plot is not known in detail; what is remembered is the subject, the rebels' resistance, and its reception in a country emerging from thirty years of war.
Context
The film is dated 1996 (1997 by the Mail & Guardian, which attributes the shooting to the Italian Franco Sardella). Its success in cinemas accompanied the rise of a Tigrinya-language cinema which, about ten years later, was releasing some sixty films a year, often about the resistance to the occupier. The first Eritrean film with English subtitles was another title, Minister.
Who it is for
A film in Tigrinya, with very limited distribution outside Eritrea; the context of the war of independence sheds light on the story.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first Eritrean feature film, it was a popular success, with more than 140,000 admissions.