Sweet Sorghum

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:47:00 GMT

In Sweet Sorghum we are introduced to the filmmaker's daughter, Rosie, (now in her early twenties) as she reflects on her childhood spent among the Hamar herdsmen, an isolated people of southwestern Ethiopia. The film reveals the intimacy of shared family life and childhood relationships between the Hamar, Rosie and her brother. We learn about the important role sorghum plays in the Hamar diet, how the sorghum is harvested and the different ways it can be prepared. The practicality of the design of cooking utensils is shown. Ivo Strecker and Jean Lydall, Rosie's parents, are well known ethnographic filmmakers who have lived with and filmed the Hamar for over twenty years. The films of Jean Lydall form a trilogy most recently seen on the BBC. The Women Who Smile, Two Girls Go Hunting and Our Way Of Loving, depict Hamar life from the perspective of the women. Ivo Strecker has also produced his own trilogy, The Father Of The Goats, Song Of The Hamar Herdsmen and the most recently released Worry And Hope In The Face Of Drought. In this body of work we find a rare opportunity to examine both the male and female perspective of a shared ethnographic experience. This film collaboration between a father and his daughter goes a long way towards helping us all to understand our common humanity no matter where and under what conditions we were born and raised.

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Bury The Spear!

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

Bury The Spear!
Buy Now: $320.00

Is peace possible? When we look at the history of mankind, questions arise about the inevitability of war and the impossibility of peace. These issues have never been more important to our future than they are in now in our globally-conscious, post-911 world. Made by the anthropologist/filmmaking team of Ivo Strecker and Alula Pankhurst, Bury the Spear! focuses on the 1993 peace-making efforts of the Abore, Borana, Konso, Tsamai, Hamar and Dasanach to end decades of ethnic war in the southern Ethiopian Rift Valley. The title of the film comes from the climactic scenes of elders uttering curses as they use stones to blunt the blades of their spears. The weapons are then carried to a termite mound, broken and placed on the mound for the ants to devour. Then the spears are replaced by tools of peace, like hoes for gardening and whips and sticks for herding. Formerly plagued by endless war, the groups of elders now chant for good fortune to ensure the peace between themselves lasts.
Pankhurst's footage was never made public until last year when he participated in a project organised by Germany's Mainz University. "Initially we were skeptical and wondered what this story would have to tell, because we did not want to come out and say, 'Look these people know how to make peace and others don't know!'," recalled Pankhurst. All of that changed when Strecker, a professor at the university who was also at the 1993 ceremony, decided to visit Arbore again in late 2002 to get a deeper meaning of the peace-making that Pankhurst had filmed. He sought out the articulate and ambitious Grazmach Surra, an elder who had been the main initiator of the peace process. Surra had a premonition of Strecker's visit and was waiting for him. He said, "German son, people are all the same, only the colour is different. The foreigner is white, people like me are black. Being human, how can they spill each other's blood? This disturbs me. Therefore I now want to reach the whole world." Dedicated to alternatives to war and steps to realistically create peace, the film is meant to serve more than the ideal or theory of peace. In fact, the film is currently being used to help break the deadlock in the peace process between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Already captivating audiences internationally, Bury the Spear! documents a remarkable moment in the history of Africa and now sets off on its peaceful mission "to reach the whole world."

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Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Strecker, Ivo / All Films

Sweet Sorghum

Bury The Spear!