Cinema
Harvest: 3,000 Years
Mirt Sost Shi Amit
Haile Gerima · 1976
Synopsis
In the mountains of Gondar, a peasant family, three generations under one roof, begins each day with a hasty prayer before working land that will never be theirs. The landowner barks his orders from his chair, followed by Kentu, a faithful servant who hopes one day to inherit his shoes. Little Beletch minds the cows and dreams that the master harnesses her family to the plough, while Kebebe, a man everyone calls mad who lives under a bridge, comes to shout the lord's greed in his face.
Context
The film was shot in the filmmaker's home region, while he was still studying in Los Angeles, in the troubled weeks that followed the fall of Haile Selassie. The cinematography is by Elliot Davis, the music by Tesfaye Lemma. It mixes documentary chronicle and narrative, and follows the slow cadence of Amharic storytellers, which its commentators compare to the endurance of the peasants it shows. Its distribution has remained limited, like that of almost all of its author's films.
Who it is for
A subtitled film in Amharic, two and a half hours long, slow-paced: it advances by tableaux rather than by plot.
Prizes and reception
Silver Leopard at the Locarno festival in 1976, it is regarded as one of the major films of African cinema of the seventies.