The Ethiopian International Film Festival: The 7th Edition, 26 November - 2 December 2012

Even though Ethiopia marked a notable event in the history of world cinema by experiencing film viewing at the very early stage of the development of world cinematic art in 1897, the practice could not maintain sustainability due to various socio-economic and political factors. The pace in which the film industry was initiated was so crawling that it drastically lagged behind those countries that were exposed to the art years later after cinema was introduced in Ethiopia. Cinema in Ethiopia took almost a century to establish itself as a culture medium; but flourished late in the last decade as video formatted productions in Addis Ababa. The increase in number of film productions in the early years of the new millennium, together with the awareness created from the past experiences of American and European embassies and cultural centers that attempted to run film festivals annually in the city, seems to have motivated few interested-groups to organize local film festivals. Of all those ambitious groups, it is the EIFF that succeeded in organizing and running film festival successively on annual bases, blending national and international film exhibitions. This paper thus attempts to provide a picture of the 7th edition of the Ethiopian International Film Festival that took place in Addis Ababa from 26 November to 2 December 2012. The paper hopefully would give a picture of an aspect of Ethiopian cinema for those International scholars with academic interest in African film in particular, and world cinema in general.