American Cinematographer - September 2016 - 86

Filmmakers' Forum

Cinematographer Raoul Germain (left, behind camera) follows an all-female singing group as they travel through Ethiopia in Yegna Movie.

Vision of a Better World
By Raoul Germain

I had been in Ethiopia for three weeks and things were not
going well. Our small crew was laid up with a bout of giardiasis, the
result of a nasty single-cell parasite that wreaks havoc on the belly.
We had contracted it when our actor and director's assistant showered in well water in the remote village of Hamed Ela, and then we
all shared a bottle of water - neither a good idea. Our director was
in the hospital on an IV; his assistant and our actor could not keep
food down. We were all on outrageously strong antibiotics, counting
the days until our flights back home to the States. That's when I was
invited to meet with a local production company about staying in
Ethiopia and shooting a feature film. Everything was telling me to go
home. My body was weak, and my mind exhausted. But I am a filmmaker, and my curiosity was simply too strong. I took the meeting.
The project was Yegna Movie, a feature that stars the allfemale singing group Yegna. The word "yegna" means "ours" in
Amharic, and the group travels the country singing about national
pride and girl power. The multi-platform Yegna brand - which also
includes a weekly radio program and a talk show featuring the five
singers - was created by the United Kingdom's Department for
International Development in cooperation with Girl Effect, an organization working to challenge the status quo and helping to envision
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September 2016

a "new normal" that enables girls and their communities to overcome the very real barriers they face through deeply entrenched
social norms.
Each of the five members of the singing group represents a
different economic and social background. The girls play fictional
characters that personify the lives of so many young women in the
country, from Mimi, who has run away from an arranged marriage
and is living on the street, to Mehlat, who comes from a wealthy
family and is the "princess" of the group. Yegna Movie is a fictional
narrative that follows these five young women as they venture out
of their village and compete in a national singing competition. Along
the way, they each face challenges that threaten to derail their
dream of bringing award money and community pride back to their
school and village. After reading the script and discussing the film's
powerful message with Ethiopian director Aida Ashenafi, I knew I
needed to be a part of this multinational project.
My relationship with Ethiopia was tenuous at best. The small
project I had just completed in the country required nothing more
than a camera and a set of sticks. A feature-length narrative with five
main actresses and multiple story lines, covering an expanse of both
the countryside and the capital city of Addis Ababa, was going to
require major logistics, gear and crew. The tight schedule of 18
shooting days did not make things any easier.
Considering the job that had to be done, I was a bit nervous

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American Cinematographer - September 2016

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