Having been temporarily closed because of the holiday season, Alliance Ethio-Française is back with Alemayehu Biratu’s Café in Addis exposition being the first event to be held in the year 2016.
Alemayehu Biratu was born in 1985 in Addis Ababa. In 2008, he graduated in Sculpture from Addis Ababa University's School of Fine Arts and Design. He participated in group exhibitions in both Addis Ababa and Hawassa.
Alemayehu is highly inspired by the power of nature and the strong varied feelings it evokes. His presentations and works mainly focus on the café atmosphere: people feeling, people waiting, discussions, meetings and thoughts inside the thousands of café in Addis.
Since cafés have become the main spot for discussing issues that range from the political spectrum to the socio-economic aspects of lives, the exposition is expected to illustrate the cafés as being the most interesting and integral part of peoples' everyday lives.
The exposition will be opened on Thursday 14th, January 2016 at 6pm.
Selam Music Festival @ Ghion Hotel
The fifth edition of the highly anticipated musical event, Selam Music Festival, will be held on 9th and 10th of January, 2016 at Unity Park of Ghion Hotel.
The launching ceremony of the festival took place at the residence of the Ambassador of Sweden on Friday January 8 in the presence of members of the diplomatic corps in Addis, participating figures, members of the media and other invited guests. The Embassy of Sweden is one of the partners of the event.
This is the fifth edition of Selam Festiva and will feature several solo performers and groups from across the world.
Mahmoud Ahmed, the prominent figure of the event and the upcoming new singer and winner of Balageru Idol, Dawit Tsige are amongst the local entertainers while American musical prodigy Yasiin Bey a.k.a. Mos Def will be presented as a phenomenal guest of the festival. Other musical bands from Sweden, Uganda, Mali and Cameroon will also be playing along with local groups such as the Krar Collective.
Goethe Institut assigns new director in Addis Ababa
Goethe Institut of the German cultural association, which is present in more than 159 countries worldwide, has assigned its new director to Ethiopia.
According to the organization, the newly assigned director is Julia Settler (PhD) arrived in Addis Ababa in the beginning of the New Year to replace her predecessor Irmtraut Hubatsch who served as a director for a long period of time.
The Goethe Institut in Addis Ababa was one of the first to be set up in Africa, back in January 1962. On its 50th anniversary, the Goethe Institut in Addis Ababa can rightfully say of itself that it has contributed to a deeper understanding between the peoples of both countries (Ethiopia and Germany).
It has launched, directed and/or coordinated a great many projects and programs on German and Ethiopian history, sociology, culture and language, in the course of which it has consistently made a point of working closely together with Ethiopian cultural institutions, private initiatives and the broader public.
New documentary on Ethiopia @ African Diaspora Film Festival
A new documentary on Ethiopia entitled “If Only I Were That Warrior” is to be screened at the 23rd Annual African Diaspora Film Festival in New York City on the 9th of January 2016.
The film was shot in Ethiopia, Italy and the United States and narrates personal stories from the 1936–1940 Italian occupation of Ethiopia.
The film was was inspired after the director Valero Ciriaci and producer Isaak Liptizin attended the 2013 panel discussion at New York University concerning the recent unveiling of a statue in Italy honoring the fascist war criminal Rodolfo Graziani—Benito Mussolini’s top enforcer in Ethiopia during the occupation in the late 1930s.
The 1937 “Yekatit” massacre is the main part of the film featuring the 91 years old Megabi Woldetensae, who back then was an eyewitness at the monastery of Debre Libanos, which is located some 112 km north of the capital, Addis Ababa. More than 30,000 residents of Addis were brutally massacred by the Italian viceroy.
