The Father
Director: Ermias Woldeamlak
Ethiopia, 2000, 26 minutes
In Amharic with English subtitles

Rating: R

The Father is set during one of the darkest periods of Ethiopian history - the terror following the 1974 deposing of Haile Selassie launched by the new military regime, the derg. Alazar is an apolitical painter looking forward to marrying Rahel, his model and girlfriend. His best friend, Yonas, a political radical, takes refuge in Alazar's house, causing them both to be captured and tortured by the military. Rahel bribes the major in charge with money and by submitting to his sexual advances. Alazar is allowed to escape the firing squad -- but only if he will shoot Yonas. 

Seven years pass, and Alazar has made an uneasy peace with the regime and with himself. He is chosen to paint a portrait of the national leader, showing "that he is the only man who can lead the country." But an unexpected reunion with Yonas' sister, Tingist, stirs old memories; he begins to suspect that his wife was raped as part of the price for sparing him and that the real father of his seven-year-old daughter may be the torturer who forced him to shoot his friend. Enraged, he defaces the painting of the leader with the same slogan Yonas used years before: "Death to the Military Dictatorship." When we see Alazar for the last time, he is fleeing the country in disguise. The Father is an impassioned political thriller which argues that past injustices will inevitably return to haunt the present and that one must never accommodate oneself to political oppression.

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Planet Africa 2000 program

The Father

Director: Ermias Woldeamlak

Country: Ethiopia

Year: 2000 Running

Time: 30 min

Language: Amharic

Distributer: California News Reel