Cinema in Ethiopia and a PhD Experience

Dr Michael W. Thomas

The SOAS Centre for Creative Industries, Media, and Screen Studies is delighted to invite you to Dr Michael W. Thomas' PhD inaugural lecture on the popular cinema of Ethiopia. Michael will present some of his PhD findings on the different genres that make up Amharic Cinema, focusing primarily on the two most prolific genres: the የፍቅር ፊልም/yefiker film (love film) and the አስቂኝ የፍቅር ፊልም/assikiñ yefiker film (humorous love film). Situating the lecture within the historical emergence of the commercial Amharic film industry in 2002, Michael will also briefly discuss other important genres and the relatively insular nature of the industry, showing clips from key films and explaining the structural workings of cinema in Addis Ababa. He will also reflect on his PhD fieldwork and how his own positionality impacted on his research in an attempt to open up and interrogate his own internal working processes and share his PhD experiences with those in attendance.

Michael is currently the Ethiopian Screen Worlds postdoctoral research fellow at SOAS, working on the ERC funded project African Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film Studies led by Lindiwe Dovey. He is also co-editor of Cine-Ethiopia: The History and Politics of Film in the Horn of Africa .