About Alazar
By Léo Ortuno
An Ethiopian village hit by a violent drought. In Alazar, the characters are lost in a vast barren landscape, where nature turned upside down forces them to leave or to stay to suffer. Beza Hailu Lemma reveals the tangible impact of climate change in an area where living conditions are increasingly hard. As an unlikely event happens, the fragile system that has held so far falls apart, and belief prevails over rationality. Between religions, miracles and curses, the filmmaker carries out a skillful investigation in which a quest for balance with our environment remains a distant horizon.
Beza Hailu Lemma’s interview
An Ethiopian village
“Life is hard in most of rural Ethiopia. As a mostly agrarian community, people are highly dependent on the crops they farm on their land to make a living. If the annual rain doesn't arrive on time, food shortages are highly likely to happen and if the drought lasts a long time, their only choice is to stay and face hunger or move to the big cities. The film takes place in a highland town in Northern Ethiopia. However, for me the story doesn't have a specific time and place.”
Belief
“Ethiopia is a highly religious country with a significant segment of the population practicing both abrahamic and indigenous beliefs at the same time. I've always been fascinated with the idea of exploring faith within this diametrically opposing context.
The film contains many perspectives that represent the diverse set of beliefs that exist in the country. The fate of mankind resting on the restoration of balance in nature or a truce with 'God' is something that belongs both to the indigenous ways of life and to Christianity. Personally, I think it has a certain truth to it. The climate crisis is a result of our inability to coexist with nature without destroying it.”
Directing Alazar
“Most of our cast are amateur actors who have never worked in film. This is their first acting work. However our main protagonist is played by Surafel Teka, a veteran theatre actor. Production was quite difficult due to challenges related to security, logistics, equipment and weather. We managed to pull through due to the resilience of our cast and crew who brought their A game despite the various adversities we faced.”
Getting lost in the landscape
“I wanted the landscape to play a big part in this film, as it decides the fate of the people that live in it. If it turns on you, it can be suffocating, which is why I wanted it to be vast and imposing. When I was preparing to shoot the film, I felt myself going back to watch a lot of American westerns, as well as films by Abbas Kiarostami, Terrence Malick and the Coen brothers.”
