The Story
Beles is a profound satire short movie about an Eritrean father named Girmay, who settle into his family's apartment in Frankfurt after 15 years.
The encounter with the young children, Joel and Tirhas, is full of misunderstandings, because Girmay doesn't show anything of his absence; instead, he is an advocate of the Eritrean way of life. "Joe" and "Tiricha" find complete expression in their Afro-American culture, however their mother always uses to remind them of their roots, which goes on their nerves. In fact, the oldest son Michael, a 24 years old student who can't deal with the Eritrean culture and behaves awkward, is the tragic figure in the short movie.
It goes without saying, that the meeting between Michael and his father is actually preprogrammed.
Background
After going on two journeys to Africa, for one month to Kenya and two month to Eritrea, I had the idea of making a project, which could be shown on the youth festival in Mannheim.
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As a matter of fact, the image of African countries is unilateral negative presented within the developed countries. Actually, I was traveling through Kenya and Eritrea with the same bad attitude until I had been surprisingly convinced of the opposite. During a crowded bus ride a young woman, who had snatched a seat in contrast to me, asked me, if she is allowed to hold my bag. I was surprised about her spontaneity and thought her helpfulness is just a false pretence to steal from me. In spite of this I entrusted her with the bag and wasn't let down. Such acts of friendship constantly went through my journey and changed my hostile picture of Africa.
What caught my attention was that the sociocultural environment of Eritrea completely differs from the German. Hence, if you are confronted as a German-Habesha with the Eritrean culture, sometimes it can end up into a cultural conflict very fast, because many manners are contrary.
Beles is an Eritrean term and means prickly pear, a tropical fruit, which is harvested and eaten in Eritrea during summer. At this time many Eritrean from entire Europe and America travel to Eritrea to visit their families. Therefore, the natives call those season tourists simply Beles.
This "Beles-Families" use to live abroad between three cultures: in this case, the German, the Eritrean and the Afro-American culture. As a consequence, the Eritrean culture with all its facets of manners and social commitments appear to most young people as the complete paradox to the liberal open-minded lifestyle of the German culture. For this reason, most of them use to escape to the Afro-American music culture, which is highly respected within the industrialized countries and moreover it suggests a strange character.
In addition, most Eritrean as well as young African people can purely visually identifies themselves with Afro-Americans, particularly because Afro-Americans aspire to western lifestyle, even though they reflect African roots in their music.
(E. S. Gebremedhin)
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