ANBESSA

By Mo SCARPELLI

LIGHTDOX - as SALES All rights, World

Documentary - Completed 2019


Festivals
& Awards

Berlinale - Berlin IFF 2019
Generation
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (online) 2021
Official Selection
    • Year of production
    • 2019
    • Genres
    • Documentary
    • Countries
    • USA, ITALY
    • Languages
    • AMHARIC
    • Duration
    • 85 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Mo SCARPELLI
    • Producer(s)
    • Caitlin Mae BURKE (Rake Films)
    • Synopsis
    • Asalif and his mother defy the newly-built housing estate which is like all the other ones springing up all over Ethiopia and continue their life within the traditional village community: grazing their animals, tending their gardens and picking fruit off the trees. Asalif’s hut lacks electricity, but the windows of the surrounding high-rises outshine the moon at night. Asalif scours the new city’s streets for electro-junk and builds a spaceship with an engine. His mother recounts ancient legends. Real estate developers buy up more land. Asalif feels increasingly threatened, stalked by the invisible hyena that haunts the area. With a sensitive grasp of her protagonist’s emotional reality, the documentary filmmaker and camerawoman Mo Scarpelli traces Asalif’s transformation into Anbessa, the lion.