What: TEZA
When: Friday May 7th - now playing
Where: Village East Cinema 181-189 2nd Ave @12th St. New York, NY 10003
Who: Haile Gerima
Why We love it: Independent effort, international exploration, cultural exposure, and artistic story-telling
I was thrilled when I found out that filmmaker Haile Gerima, director of Sankofa and Adwa, was releasing another film that explores the complexities of Africa. TEZA is the newest award-winning addition to Gerima's impressive list of independent films that have been well received by international audiences. This particular film follows the journey of a young Ethiopian man named, Anberber, that leaves his homeland in hopes of one day returning to help his people. After watching the trailer, I could see this film was worth a trip to the theatre! Luckily, TEZA is playing in New York City for a limited time, so I had the opportunity to go see it at the Village East Cinema. TEZA is one of those rare movies that was able to make me laugh, cry, sit on the edge of my seat, and leave the theatre with a new understanding and appreciation of the African Diaspora. I encourage everyone to go experience and spread the word about this phenomenal film. Also, we had the honor of interviewing Haile Gerima about various aspects of TEZA, read below!
INDIEBABEL interviews Haile Gerima
INDIEBABEL: What was your inspiration behind creating TEZA?
Haile Gerima: Displacement. Primarily, a generation that went to Europe and America, but due to certain historical circumstances, experienced displacement of not belonging there or here. It’s about the fundamental aspects of not belonging once you make those types of journeys.INDIEBABEL: How did you go about addressing those TEZA viewers that are unfamiliar with the historical contexts and references in the film?
Haile Gerima: When you make a film it's very difficult to direct the narrative structure to explain, and put certain things in context the same way you could with a documentary. However, I hope that people will pay attention to the human drama and the personal aspects of the individual (Anberber); his home, his mother, and his dream of wanting to do something about the diseases that ravage his people.INDIEBABEL: What type of dialogue do you want this film to start within Ethiopian and other African communities in the United States and abroad?
Haile Gerima: Fundamentally, by the very making of the film, I am saying to African descendants and everyone that is left outside of the wide storytelling planet, to claim your story and tell your story. I want to encourage Ethiopians, African Americans, and all African descendants to use their own imperfect mistakes and experiences to tell their stories.Check out what local NYC film students and independent filmmakers asked Haile Gerima about TEZA!
NYU film major and creator of the independent short-film The Boy Who Cried Help, Gerald Baptiste asked, What are the advantages of using flashbacks as a story mechanism in Teza?
Haile Gerima: The word flashback itself is strange to me. I know that in film school we call it "flashback" but I think that if you follow the story, you can see that I am actually using an Ethiopian concept called "enkokoklish". Enkokoklish is a Sheppard’s game that the young boys in the beginning of the film are playing. It is a game of the children, and it's kind of like a puzzle. In TEZA, you see a character (Anberber) completely having his past and memory marked from him, so the liberty to remember and the liberty for memory is in the concept of enkokokilish. We have so many unexposed cultural formats in our respective societies where we come from, and if we all stop imitating Greek-Roman structures and explore our own, we might find what African Americans discovered in Jazz.
NYU Social and Cultural Analysis major and creator of the independent documentary Bi-deology, Arielle Palmer asked, What was the process to get funding for a film focused on an aspect of the African Diaspora?
Haile Gerima: I’ll say this, funding is always very serious. Telling your story comes with a price. For African descendants, there is no organized motion picture industry that is interested in financing our stories, and therefore, we have to be innovative, very low-budget, creative, and look internationally to do these movies.
Production freelancer and director of independent film The Situation, Jonathan Tucker asked, How difficult was it to secure locations while filming in another country, and was the government cooperative?
Haile Gerima: I didn’t have any government support, nor would I expect to because when you accept government support, they want you to be a mouthpiece, and therefore, you stand to loose a lot of your credibility. So for me, I don’t associate with any living governments in Africa. I try to be absolutely independent or never make a film. In terms of area and location, I was born and grew up playing where the film was shot (Gondar, Ethiopia). I went there many, many, many days, again and again every summer to study the geography, because the more you study your location, the more you save money. By taking pre-production advantage, you let the homework work for you. When you are with crew that has come internationally, you want to use them quickly and finish your shooting as soon as possible before anything emerges to prevent the taping. 
