Ye Wonz Maibel: Deluge

YE WONZ MAIBEL: DELUGE by Salem Mekuria is a personal visual meditation on history, conflict and the roads to reconciliation. It is a tale of love and betrayal, of idealism and the lure of power. It is a memorial to a brother who disappeared and a best friend, executed. It is a story of the Ethiopian students, their "Revolution" and its aftermath - a brutal military dictatorship.

"In making Ye Wonz Maibel: Deluge, I wanted to contemplate on the role of the individual in perpetuating national tragedies, be it famine, war or political terror, by re-visiting family tragedies in my home, Ethiopia. Focusing my lens on and searching through my own history, I sought personal experiences that illuminated universal truths. What motivates us to love or to destroy? What turns good to evil, nobility to cowardice, and vision to nightmare? Where do the ranges in-between reside? I have no answers but I offer this work as a tool for looking back to get a sense of how we can look forward to a future in which responsibility and choice inform our conduct."

FORMAT: 16mm, beta - digital and SP, VHS
LENGTH: 61:07, 69:00
Year Released: 1996, 1997

CREDITS

DELUGE was shot on location in Ethiopia. Production took place between 1991 and 1995.

Writer/Producer/Director - Salem Mekuria
Camera - Mark Gunning, Salem Mekuria
Editors - Eric Neudel, Dan Nutu

BROADCAST: Channel Four Television, England, 1997, South African Broadcasting Corp., 2000, scheduled for Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp., 2001

AWARDS: Heart of Festival, Vermont International Film Festival, '98;
First Place, the National Black Programming Consortium's Prized Pieces '97;
Director's Citation, in the Black Maria Film & Video Festival, '97.

For more information see http://www.salemmekuria.com/films/deluge.htm